Career and research
Devoy moved to Cork to continue his research after graduating from Cambridge. In 1984 he was a visiting researcher at the University of Delaware and subsequently served as a visiting research fellow in Geomorphology at the Australian National University in 1987, and as a research fellow at the University of Sydney in 1990 and again from 1992 to 1993. From 1992 he was the founding director of the Coastal and Marine Research Centre (CMRC) at University College Cork, working there until 2002.
Devoy describes his primary research interest as coastal science, including contemporary coastal processes and coastal management. This has included researching the implications of climate change on coastal erosion and water dynamics. He was a lead author on the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report, which led to the IPCC being awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He went on to serve as a reviewer for the Fifth Report published in 2014.
In 2015 he suggested it would cost at least €5bn to properly protect Ireland's largest cities and critical areas of the coastline. Two years later he publicly criticised Cork flood defence plans, accusing the proposed scheme of being too reliant on an outdated study and not taking the threat of tidal flooding seriously enough.
