Before her tenure as Professor and Fellow in the School of Physics at Trinity College Dublin, Eithne was formerly Fellow and lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford and Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff and later Consultant, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawford Hill Laboratory, New Jersey, USA. Her research background is in optical engineering including light sources and high-resolution optical imaging.

Eithne’s experience includes Board Member of the Irish Research Council, member of the Institute of Directors in Ireland, Executive member of Women in Technology and Science (WITS), member of Helsinki group and Institute of Physics Juno implementation group. Eithne has served Trinity and the wider national and international community on numerous committees including Finance, Personnel and Appointments, INTEGER and Equality. She led prestigious successful international gender equality awards, Athena SWAN and Institute of Physics Juno and led Trinity Women in Physics and Juno initiatives initiating national Women in Physics meetings and networking. She has served on numerous international scientific conference organising committees in addition to many national and international service to the community committees including the BA Festival of Science and the national committee for the UNESCO International Year of Light.

Her Doctorate work was carried out at the University of Oxford with full industrial sponsorship she secured entirely independently. She was elected a Senior Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford. During this period she was awarded a Royal Television Society Scholarship and an Amelia Earhart Medal and award. She has worked with AT&T, Digital Equipment Corporation, Hitachi, Bosch, and ESB during her career. Her undergraduate work was carried out at UCD where she earned a First Class Honours Degree in Electronic Engineering and earned first place in a Hewlett-Packard national award for her final year research project.