Dr Sandra Collins is the Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI). She was appointed to this role in the Royal Irish Academy in 2011. She is the Chair of the ALLEA (all European Academies) international E-Humanities Working Group, a member of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Europe Council, and a Work Package Leader for the FP7 STREP project Decipher.

She was previously a scientific programme manager in Science Foundation Ireland, where she had responsibility for a flagship industry-facing research centres programme with total investment over 150M€. She has 10 years experience in the telecommunications industry including Ericsson Research and various EU research projects, and a prior appointment as lecturer in DCU School of Mathematics. She received her PhD in 1996 in nonlinear fluid dynamics.