Flannery's education included a primary all-girls school and secondary education at Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál in Blarney. mathematician David Flannery (1952-2023). It tells the story of the making and breaking of the Cayley-Purser algorithm, as well as the enjoyment she got from solving mathematical puzzles while growing up. She dedicates many of her accomplishments in the fields of mathematics and cryptography to her father's support during her childhood. She studied
computer science at
Peterhouse, a college of the
University of Cambridge, graduating in 2003, and, as of 2006, worked for
Electronic Arts as a software engineer. She worked at
TirNua as a "Chief Scientist". She developed the virtual economy in a game and the back-end web services that powered the game features. She has also worked at RockYou, and several other institutions involved in software development and computer science. Before working at TirNua, Flannery was software engineer working directly with then Electronic Arts Worldwide Chief Technology Officer, Scott Cronce, and, later, with many fellow TirNua founders on her first virtual world. At EA, she successfully set up the EA Open Source program using the Essential Project. Flannery created data visualizations on software architecture and game content creation which were used to directly impact the quality of both. She also successfully ran and turned around the virtual economy within EA-Land (formerly
The Sims Online). Previously, she worked on the technical and scientific computing software product
Mathematica for
Wolfram Research. The lights on St. Patrick's Street, one of the main thoroughfares of Flannery's home city of Cork, are named after her. Flannery is the sister of the singer and songwriter
Mick Flannery. ==Bibliography==