Summer School 2022 Speakers
Speaker Biographies
Dr Nita Mishra - (DSAI Chair) Dublin City University
Nita is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health at Dublin City University. A part time lecturer on International Development, with a career formed in India, Vietnam and Ireland, Nita's research focuses on human rights-based approaches to development, feminist methodologies, gender, non-government organisations, environment, and peace studies. Nita has worked extensively at grassroots level with civil society organisations, faith-based organisations, and funding bodies in India. Her poetry, critically acclaimed as the future of Irish feminisms, speaks of lived experiences of migrant women across the globe. Currently, Chair of DSAI, a director on the Board of Children’s Rights Alliance, and the Irish representative on the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), Dr Mishra is also an active member of several community-based organisations in Ireland.
Dr Carol Ballantine
Carol completed a PhD in 2020, on narratives of violence in the lives of African migrant women in Ireland. She works as a postdoctoral researcher investigating social polarisation related to gender, sexuality and reproductive rights. Prior to her PhD, Carol worked in the field of international development for Trócaire for ten years, specialising in human rights, HIV and gender equality. With Trócaire, she lived and worked in Honduras and travelled extensively in Africa and Latin America.
Dickson Boateng – University of Limerick Dickson is a PhD student in the Department of Geography of the Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. He holds a master’s degree in Sustainable Environmental Management from the University of Greenwich-UK, and a BA in Geography and Rural Development from the KNUST-Ghana. His PhD research focuses of energy poverty and just transitions. Dickson has significant experience in environmental resources management, rural development, and poverty alleviation— having worked with an NGO abroad as the Assistant Project Coordinator and Environmental Conservation Officer. He has keen interest in research, international and rural development, poverty, and environmental management.
Dickson Boateng – University of Limerick
Dickson is a PhD student in the Department of Geography of the Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. He holds a master’s degree in Sustainable Environmental Management from the University of Greenwich-UK, and a BA in Geography and Rural Development from the KNUST-Ghana. His PhD research focuses of energy poverty and just transitions. Dickson has significant experience in environmental resources management, rural development, and poverty alleviation— having worked with an NGO abroad as the Assistant Project Coordinator and Environmental Conservation Officer. He has keen interest in research, international and rural development, poverty, and environmental management.
Professor Tom Collins - Educational Policy Analyst
Tom is the former Head of Education at Maynooth University (2006-2011); Dean of Teaching and Learning there between 2008 and 2011 and interim President there 2010-2011. Between 2011 and 2013, he was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Medical University of Bahrain.
Dr Catherine Corcoran - TUS
Catherine 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.
Mark Garavan – Atlantic Technological University Mark is a lecturer on the Applied Social Care programme in the Atlantic Technological University. 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.
Mark Garavan – Atlantic Technological University
Mark is a lecturer on the Applied Social Care programme in the Atlantic Technological University. 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.
Clifford Guest, Lecturer Sustainable Development, TUS
Clifford is a lecturer at the Thurles campus of the Technological University of the Shannon and lectures to students across two full time degree programmes on sustainable development, renewable energy and sustainable agriculture. Clifford is from Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary. He has worked on many European projects on bioenergy. He was the Irish representative of the IEA Bioenergy Task on Socio Economic Drivers of Bioenergy Projects and involved in several EU networks promoting farm based renewable energy. He has a master’s degree in Rural Development from NUI Galway, and a Master’s of Science degree in Climate Change and Sustainable Development from De Montfort University, Leicester.
Dr Frank Houghton – TUS
Frank is a Lecturer, Department of Humanities, Limerick Institute of Technology, Moylish Park, Limerick, Ireland. His current interests include the use of GIS, spatial inequalities in health and healthcare provision.
Thokozani Kalanj - CONCERN Worldwide Thokozani is a nutrition advisor who has just completed her Masters in Business and International development at University College Cork focussing on gender transformative approaches. She is now the programme manager of CONCERN’s Graduation out of Poverty programme in Malawi. Her research has included linking poverty eradication to the SDGs.
Thokozani Kalanje - CONCERN Worldwide
Thokozani has over 10 years of experience in the areas of nutrition, food security, social protection, gender, livelihoods and resilience. She is currently a student at University College Cork in Ireland (2021- 2022). She is from Malawi and has worked for the government, a hospital and the NGO sector. She has worked with Trinity College Dublin and Concern Worldwide in Malawi in implementing a Randomized Control Trial, as a Programme Manager on Social Protection and Gender Transformative Approaches to address poverty outcomes within a social protection programme known as the Graduation ProgrammeAneeqa Malik - Trans4m Communiversity Associates (TCA) co-founder
Aneeqa Malik - Trans4m Communiversity Associates (TCA) co-founder
Aneeqa is the Senior Strategist Research Facilitator of Akhuwat Foundation, Pakistan and the UK. She is a trained Action Learning Training Research Facilitator working closely with other TCA board directors bringing in her Eastern Sufi impulse to TCA fold.
Paul Murphy - Safer World
Paul is the Executive Director at Saferworld, where he oversees the organisation's development and growth as well as operations and programmes. After joining as Head of Europe and Central Asia in 2008, he became Director of Programmes and then Executive Director in 2011.
Dr Yomi Ogunsanya - University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Abayomi holds a PhD degree in Anthropology from University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He has taught courses in anthropology and sociology in the Department of Sociology, Osun State University, Nigeria. He has published book chapters and articles in learned journals. He is a 2018 African Humanities Program Postdoctoral Fellow and Cadbury Research Fellow, University of Birmingham, UK in 2016. In 2018 Dr Ogunsanya moved to Ireland with his family and experienced direct provision first-hand. He has delivered lectures on aspects of his research and on his experience of Direct Provision System at various fora, including during the 2021 Ethnography Winter School in the Department of Anthropology, Maynooth University. He was a consultant on the development of the CARe (Career Advancement for Refugee Researchers in Europe) country guides for Scholars At Risk Europe and is currently a member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists 2022 Scientific Committee.
Dr Lucia Rost – Research Manager, PLAN International
Lucia is a Research Manager at PLAN International. Her background is in mixed-methods research on children’s rights and gender equality. Her PhD at the University of Oxford explored social norms related to unpaid care work, and her work with Oxfam, UNICEF and ODI investigated gender equality, economic empowerment, sexual health and early childhood development. At Plan International, she leads and advises on a wide range of research projects that contribute to Plan International’s programming and advocacy work that aims to advance children’s rights and equality for girls – including projects on climate change, education, early childhood development, skills development and youth activism, sexual and reproductive health, violence and child protection.
Dr Josephine Treacy - TUS
Josephine is a Lecturer, Department of Applied Science, Technological University of the Shannon, Ireland. She previously worked with the Environmental Department in Cork County Council. One of her current research interests include academic writing in the area of water management.
Zahbia Yousuf, Safer World
Zahbia is Senior Research Advisor at Saferworld, where she supports research design and delivery for practical programming and policy advocacy. Zahbia was at Conciliation Resources from 2012–2018, where she was editor of the Accord Insight publication, and managed the DFID funded Political Settlements Research Project, supporting CR staff and partner organisations to develop practice based research activities. She has also been a Teaching Fellow in Violence, Conflict and Development at SOAS University, and Kings College London, and completed a PhD in Comparative Peace Processes in 2010 with a focus on Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine and Kashmir from Kings College London.
Sarah Zipp – University of Stirling
Sarah is the Deputy Programme Director for Sport Studies (undergraduate) and teaches on the Master’s in Sport Management at Stirling. Her research and teaching explores issues of social justice and leadership in sport, including gender equality, sport for development, globalization, ethics and environmental concerns. She has published academic articles, media articles, book chapters and research reports. Dr Zipp co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Global Sport (2020) and was named the Early Career Researcher of the Year (2020) by the Journal of Sport for Development.
Dr Stephanie Wrottesley – ENN
Stephanie is a Nutritionist working across ENN’s portfolio with a current focus on Adolescent Nutrition, concurrent Wasting and Stunting (WaSt), and a new project on Climate Change and Nutrition. Stephanie has an MSc in Public Health Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She completed her PhD at the SAMRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit (DPHRU) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg in 2018. This explored maternal nutritional status and dietary intake during pregnancy and the association with birth outcomes and neonatal body composition, in the context of HIV. As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at DPHRU Stephanie expanded her focus to how multiple maternal nutrition and health exposures influence fetal growth, birth outcomes and infant health trajectories during the first 1000 days in urban African settings, as well as how this may impact long term risk of obesity and non-communicable diseases.