Steering Committee

Dr Pieternella Pieterse is a postdoctoral researcher working on COALESCE funded research focusing on infant feeding policy implementation in Malawi, with colleagues from DCU, RCSI in Ireland and KCN in Malawi.

Pieternella has a PhD from the University of Limerick, Department of Politics and Public Administration. She is interested in health systems, health equity, accountability, corruption and gender and focused on the impact of accountability interventions on corruption in primary healthcare in Sierra Leone for her doctoral research.

Pieternella moved to Dublin earlier this year having spent the past 8 years living in Ethiopia and Tanzania, working as a researcher and consultant for research projects and UN agencies such as the Ethiopian Social Accountability Programme; Making all Voices Count (IDS, Sussex University), the World Bank and UNICEF.

In 2019 Pieternella worked with UNICEF and the Ethiopian Ministry of Health to establish a steering group for the improvement of a citizen scorecard tool in health centres nationwide, and she conducted research for UNICEF, with MoH in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, examining health budget decision making and funding flows at district level.

She was the chair of the board for the Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa from 2014-2016 and ‘research & evaluation advisory group’ member for the accountability and citizen action organization Twaweza in Dar es Salaam from 2017-2019. As a PhD student, Pieternella benefited greatly from guidance during the DSAI’s first postgraduate training events in 2011 (UL) and 2012 (UCC). She has presented her research at a range of conferences, including several DSAI conferences in recent years. 

Dr Rosarii Griffin is the Interim Director of the ‘Centre for Global Development’ at University College Cork, Ireland, and teaches and researches in the area of ‘education for global sustainable development’; gender, disability studies and research methodology (quantitative and qualitative research methods) in UCC. Rosarii’s expertise is in the area of ‘International and Comparative Education’ (D.Phil, Oxford University). She is also involved in several European Horizon 2020 (EUH2020) multi-million Euro Projects. Previously, Rosarii was a Director of a Centre for Global Development (MIC/UL, Limerick) where she led six teacher-education capacity-building projects between Africa and Ireland with a €1.8m budget funded by Irish Aid and the Higher Education Authority (HEA). Rosarii co-founded the Centre for Global Development (CGD) at UCC where she now works.

In 2020, Rosarii represented UCC at the UN Assembly, New York (February, 2020), meeting Bono (Lead Singer in U2); Former President of Ireland Prof. Mary Robinson and Irish UN Ambassador and Security Council member (Her Excellency Geraldine Byrne Nasan). Separately, Rosarii has undertaken consultancies for the World Bank, UNESCO, NGOs and is currently a partner on EU Horizon 2020 projects and is an EU (Swafs) Evaluator. Rosarii gives business seminars on goal-setting and work-life balance to Medical and Business professionals. She also teaches on the topics pertaining to education and global sustainable development, gender, disability studies, social justice issues and marginalised groups vis-à-vis educational issues. Rosarii has published 6 books in international and comparative education and is currently working on a seventh.  

Currently, Rosarii is Chairperson of UCC’s Researcher Staff Association (UCCRSA);  the International Officer for IrishRSA; Secretary and Director of the International Consortium of Researcher Staff Associations (ICORSA). Rosarii is a longstanding Fellow of London’s Royal Society of Arts, UK.  Finally, in her free time, Rosarii likes to read, run, play tennis and the piano. She is also the proud mother of two vivacious teenage girls.

Catherine Corcoran has worked in the development sector for over 30 years with in Ireland and Africa, at management, policy and community levels with CONCERN Worldwide and also in academia at the Technological University of the Shannon. She has led and advised organisations on strategic and community-led planning and provided leadership, research, technical support and advice within challenging contexts, developing and leading consortia and partnerships at an International level. Her PhD research focuses on community-led planning and resilience building.

Dr. Eilish Dillon is an Assistant Professor at the Maynooth University Department of International Development. Eilish has been actively engaged in global and development education in Ireland for over 30 years. She has 10 years second-level teaching experience and 20 years’ experience in programme design, curriculum development, co-ordination and teaching in higher education. She has been an active contributor to civil society global development and education projects during this time through work with Comhlámh, Amnesty International, Banúlacht and the Irish Development Education Association (IDEA). She completed doctoral research in adult and higher education and has published widely on global and development education and communications in peer reviewed journals and books has engaged in supporting ethical global development communications in Ireland for many years, acting as an advisor to Dóchas on its working groups on the Dóchas Code of Conduct on Images and Messages (2010 - 2016) and on its Worldview Research Project (2020 - 2021).

Mark Garavan is a lecturer on the Applied Social Care programme in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. He is the author of Compassionate Activism: An Exploration of Integral Social Care. His PhD research was on Irish environmental activism. He has been Chairperson of Mayo Citizens Information Service and has been a director and trustee for many years of Feasta – the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability. He is also a community activist serving on the Boards of Westport Family Resource Centre, Mayo Travellers Support Group, and Mayo Intercultural Action. He is Chairperson of the Planet Youth Mayo Steering Committee. Mark’s main focus of research is on how to develop community-based responses to current ecological and social crises.

Dr Sheila Long is a qualified social care worker and experienced educationalist with expertise in international children’s rights education, specialized in early childhood education and care, child participation and child protection and adult education with practice experience in Ireland and East Africa and 12 years’ experience in academia and early years teacher training. She has published in the area of children’s rights education and initial early years teacher education.

Keitumetse Mabole is a PhD student at Department & Adult & Community Education, Maynooth University with a passion to grow knowledge and skills that can benefit the wellbeing and livelihoods of our communities. A recipient of the Irish Research Council  Government of Ireland scholarship for his research ‘The impact of indigenous knowledge in enhancing lifelong learning amongst the marginalised communities: The case of the San communities in Botswana’, his research explores elements of indigenous knowledge that can inform more sustainable strategies of development from the Global South. The research incorporates an ecological, interdisciplinary approach, drawing in insights from adult education, sustainable development, and ecology. Keitumetse has14 years of experience working with different communities on Adult Education programmes in Botswana, in a role that involves refining and repositioning the education programmes to better meet the needs of adult learners and to empower them in a community-based sustainable manner. He holds a Masters in Educational Leadership from the Botswana Open University (Botswana) and  Bachelor of Arts In Education from the University of Pretoria ( South Africa). 

Deirdre joined Plan in July 2017, and has many years’ experience working in the international development sector.  She currently oversees Inclusive Quality Education Programmes in West Africa, funded by Irish Aid and the EU, also a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning and Disability and Inclusion brief as well.

An early posting with VSO as a teacher in China, influenced her career progression; working in project management in Ireland with African students, international development workers, migrant women and asylum seekers.  She spent 6 years in Ethiopia, managing emergency and livelihoods programmes, and working as a gender advisor for fields in East Africa.

Deirdre has a Master’s in Development Studies and also in Management (Community and Voluntary Sector) and has been involved in managing Certificates in Leaders for Change and Project Management at the National College of Ireland.

Eimear Stewart is a PhD researcher in the department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick. Her research focusses primarily on women’s rights and Critical Military Studies. Her PhD thesis examines the inclusion of women in the Irish Defence Forces through a feminist perspective. She completed her BA in Politics and International Relations and her MA in Peace and Development. Since doing her MA, she has realised her passion for NGO work and is continuing her interest in development through DSAI. Eimear runs groups for women and community groups in her home county of Clare.

Professor Owen Worth is the Head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick. He works, teaches and publishes in the wide areas of International Political Economy and Global Politics and has published on class, hegemony, resistance, political movement from both the right and left and on International Relations (IR) theory. He is the author of 4 books, a co-editor of a number of collections and has published in several journals throughout his career. He has also been a visiting academic at a number of universities across Europe and North America and has sat and continues to sit on the board of a number of networks and academic committees. He is the Managing Editor of the long-standing journal Capital & Class, which is published by Sage.