Ann Rigney was educated at University College Dublin (BA, MA) and at the University of Toronto (PhD). Between 2003 and 2024 she held the chair of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University.  She is a member of the Royal Dutch Academic of Sciences (KNAW) and of the Academia Europea as well as an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a corresponding fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2017 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Aarhus University and in 2021 she was recipient of the Belgian Francqui Chair at Antwerp University. She served as Head of the Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication in 2017-2019.   She is a founding member of the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies and since 2025 President of the international Memory Studies Association.