Steering Committee

Pádraig Carmody is an Associate Professor in Geography at Trinity College Dublin, where he did his undergraduate and masters work and a visiting Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg.  His Ph.D. is from the University of Minnesota in the US, where after graduation he also taught at the University of Vermont.  At TCD he co-directs the Trinity-UCD Masters in Development Practice.  His research centres on the political economy of globalisation in Africa.  He has published a number of books, including The New Scramble for Africa (2016, 2^nd edition) and the Rise of the BRICS in Africa (2013) and with James Murphy, Africa’s Information Revolution (2015).  His current research examines the impacts of large-scale land acquisitions in Africa.  He sits on the board of Political Geography and African Geographical Review and is editor-in-chief of Geoforum.

Maja Haals Brosnan is the Research Co-ordinator for the Children's Research Network. Her role is to support researchers in Ireland and Northern Ireland by responding to research queries, organising events and training according to members' needs. She oversees the publication of the Children's Research Digest and the Network's annual conference in December. She also directs a variety of special interest groups under the Network, including one on child and youth participation with a strong focus on ethics. Maja has a particular interest in research methodology and ethics, supporting researchers in optimising the influence of their research on policy and practice as well as to support practitioner researchers. Maja has a background in the not-for-profit and international development sectors. Most recently she worked as a researcher for Early Childhood Ireland. She has volunteered as a researcher for the Irish Refugee Council and is a former CES graduate intern. She is currently lecturing in early childhood part time and completing her PhD thesis in social anthropology on adverse childhoods in post-genocide Rwanda. She has published on methods for researching with children and young people.

Alison Duffy, FCA. Qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2001 having trained with Grant Thornton. Alison has served as a committee member with CAI publishing committee for eight years and as vice chair on the Dochas Finance, Compliance and Governance working group for several years.

Alison worked in finance in the private sector for twelve years and in the humanitarian and development sector for five years. Alison is currently employed as Compliance and Finance manager in Self Help Africa, a leading international development charity with an expertise in small scale farming and growing family-farm businesses.

Her areas of interest include the future direction of Compliance functions as we consider Culture within organisations and the UN Global Compact Sustainability Initiative, a corporate sustainability initiative.

Mary Van Lieshout is Global Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning Advisor with GOAL. She has an MSc in Community Health and General Practice from Trinity College and an MA in International Relations from Dublin City University. She has over 15 years working in international development and humanitarian work, both in the field and within policy and research functions based in Dublin with Oxfam Ireland and GOAL respectively.  She has written widely on development issues for the Irish media, and has edited a book on gender and development for Attic Press following the UN Conference on Women and Development in Beijing in 1995. She was Head of Research and Standards Development for the National Disability Authority from 2002 – 2012 and has worked as Health Promotion Director for the former Eastern Health Board where she developed a research and advocacy programme on  health promotion and health inequalities in Ireland. She was appointed by the Minister of Health to the Healthy Ireland Council in 2013.

Dr Nita Mishra is Research Fellow at Dublin City University, tutor and part-time lecturer at University College Cork. She is an occasional lecturer on food policies, gender, and rights-based approaches to development. She has extensive work experience in the Indian sub-continent as a researcher, academic, and development practitioner.

Dr Mishra was awarded the Strategic Research Fund Award by the UCCVice President's Office in 2014-2015 for crosscutting research (published in peer-reviewed journals) in the politics of Poverty, Human Rights, Environment and Sustainable Development. Herpoetry, critically acclaimed, is widely published. She is the National Coordinator of Academics Stand Against Poverty-Irish Network (ASAP-Irish Network); Member of Working Groups of the Irish Forum for International Agricultural Development (IFIAD); amongst other positions.

Barbara Scettri is Senior Education Advisor with Plan International Ireland, with technical support, policy and advocacy and research functions.

She has a background in education and child protection and has over 15 years of working experience in humanitarian and development contexts including field experience in Sub-Saharan Africa, DRC, South East-Asia and the Middle East with INGOs and UN Agencies.

Barbara started off her career as researcher in Italy and Syria where she worked respectively with migrants from Eastern Europe and Palestinian Refugees. She has a Master Degree in cultural anthropology/sociology and is a trained primary school teacher.

Angela Veale (PhD, M. Med.Sc. Psych.) is a Lecturer in Applied Psychology, UCC and a child psychotherapist. Her major research themes are: 1.  Psychology of peace & conflict: post-conflict social reintegration of children & families. 2.  Children, Globalisation, Mobility and 'New Migrations' 3.  Psychosocial and psychotherapeutic interventions to support children's psychological wellbeing. As a researcher, she aims to contribute in the space between academic knowledge, policy and practice. Her research and writing takes a socio-cultural and politically situated understanding of the psychological wellbeing of children & families in Ireland and internationally, often using a participatory action research orientation.  She is interested in innovative and mixed research methodologies, in particular working with creative research methods.  She was partner to  the NORFACE funded Transnational Child-Raising between Europe and Africa, and co-director of the Provictimus/Oak Foundation funded project on the social reintegration of young mother's formerly associated with armed groups in Sierra Leone, Liberia and northern Uganda. She is a former Fulbright Scholar. Her research has been funded by Irish Research Council, UCC Strategic Research Fund, Irish Aid, Oak Foundation amongst others.  

Dr Gerard McCann is a Senior Lecturer in International Studies at St Mary’s University College, Queen’s University Belfast. He is responsible for international programmes at the College, including Erasmus + and the SEDIM Programme (Kraków). He is the coordinator of a number of partnership initiatives with universities in Nairobi, Lusaka and Bethlehem. Formerly the chair of the Centre for Global Education, Belfast, he is currently chair of Africa House (Northern Ireland) and the DFID Global Learning Programme’s Research Committee (NI). He has written extensively on the European Union’s development policies and Development Education. Books include: co-edited, International Human Rights, Social Welfare and Global Development (Policy Press, 2017, forthcoming); Lustration (Pegasus, 2016); co-edited, From the Local to the Global (Pluto, 2015); Ireland’s Economic History: Crisis and Development in the North and South (Pluto, 2011); co-edited, Issues in Economic Development in sub-Saharan Africa (Zam, 2011). He is on the editorial board of Policy and Practice.

Philomena is a postgraduate student of Applied Social Research Methods in Trinity College Dublin. Building on her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Social Policy (also in Trinity) in 2018, where issues relating to international development were a key feature including around 'Globalisation and Development'; 'Gender, Work and Families'; and ‘Economics of Policy Issues', Philomena's primary research interests include Gender; Health; Education, Social Stratification; Housing; Migration; and Ageing Societies. She was elected a Trinity Scholar (non-Foundation) for academic excellence in 2016.