The Arts Council has announced the appointment of Emmett Scanlon to the role of Architecture Specialist Consultant. As a member of the arts policy team, reporting to Séamus Crimmins, Arts Policy Director, he will be responsible for providing policy advice to the Arts Council on architecture, and for developmental work in this artform. Emmett Scanlon studied architecture at University College Dublin, graduating in 1997. As an undergraduate he won the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland Travelling Scholarship. He completed an MSc in Architecture at University College Dublin in 2000, a work which examined the relationship between architectural theory, architectural practice and the reality of occupation and use.

Having worked in The Netherlands with Mecanoo and EEA Rotterdam, and in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, he began working with the design-led Dublin practice Grafton Architects in 1997, becoming Project Director in 2002. He has worked on numerous public and private projects, including North Kildare Educate Together School, offices in Dublin City University, housing in Bjorvika, Oslo, the new building for Universita Luigi Boconni in Milan, and the recently completed Meath Arts Centre, Theatre and Gallery in Navan, Co Meath.

Since 1999, Emmett has been a studio lecturer at University College Dublin where he is also a tutor in the History and Theory of Architecture and Design Technology. He has also taught at the Dublin Institute of Technology and at Queen's University Belfast. He has contributed to, and reviewed work for, many international architectural journals and, since 2005, has been Irish correspondent to A10, the European architectural journal. He has published and presented his research work in Dublin (2003), Milan (2001) and Rome (2006).