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. 

Ciara O'HAlloran holds an MA in Digital Humanities from University College Cork and a BA in Anthropology and Sociology from NUI Maynooth. Ciara has worked on a wide number of local, community and area development projects across Ireland, with a focus on resilient and sustainable communities. She currently works on communications for Civic and Community Engagement in University College Cork. Research interests include design thinking and design science, service design, service learning, civic scholarship and communications that can connect, empower and engage people around new models of working together for more ethical, equitable and sustainable societies.

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). 

Susan is an Associate Professor in Development Practice in the Discipline of Geography, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. Her research interests are in international development ethics, policy, and practice, issues in governance and justice, human rights and climate change, and gender and social inclusion. She am the Principal Investigator of GEOFORMATIONS: the geographies of dynamic governance assemblages in development cooperation civil society spaces, funded by the European Research Council (ERC-2022-STG), and research group leader for the Climate Justice in Development Research Group. Susan is also Chair of the Research Ethics Committee, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College; a member of the Department of Foreign Affairs Audit Committee (2021-2027); and a Scientific Committee Member of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD since 2014). Previously, she served as Chair of Trinity International Development Initiative (2013-2020); UCC External Examiner for BSc in International Development (2019-2023); Chair of the Board of Trustees - Oxfam Ireland (2016-2023) & Board of Supervisors, Oxfam International (2018-2021); BISA Ethics and World Politics Co-conveyor (2019-2023) and steering committees of Future Earth Ireland and COALITION 2030.

Susan completed her Ph.D. at University College Dublin researching the politics and ethics of international assistance (2008-2012). Following completion of an MA in Politics and International Relations (1996) Susan spent several years teaching political theory and the philosophical foundations of human rights. She then spent ten years in industry working as a Manager with Accenture. Her research and teaching bring to bear almost thirty years of research and professional experience in academia and industry.

Emma Murtagh is The Wheel's Senior EU Programmes Manager.  

Her role includes overseeing the delivery of Access Europe, a support and capacity building programme for Irish civil society organisations accessing and managing EU funding. Emma works with The Wheel’s policy team on European policy that affects civil society and creates opportunities for the sector to engage with EU decision makers. Emma also drives The Wheel’s own European development and designs projects that further the strategic goals of the organisation and support the sector overall. This means overseeing a whole host of projects in a wide variety of areas that have been made possible through EU funding. 

Emma is a qualified trainer who regularly designs and delivers sessions on a variety of topics, including funding, grant writing, partnership building, and project design.  

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.

Patricia Wall is Programme Operations Lead, Regional Director - Great Lakes, East Africa, West Africa, & Bangladesh. Previously she has worked in Ireland setting up and managing the Training and Learning Programme for the Development Sector at the Kimmage Development Studies Centre, and for 25 years she worked in Africa including Namibia, The Gambia and Ethiopia, DRC and Cameroon in a variety of leadership roles. Patricia undertook primary research on community water resources in a rural community in Namibia as part of an MA programme in Geography and is currently undertaking further post graduate studies in Applied Social Science at UCC.

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.