Dermot McAleese Teaching Awards Recognise Outstanding Teaching Assistants

Posted on: 28 May 2024

The School of Social Sciences and Philosophy celebrated excellence in teaching at a ceremony on May 28th by honouring four outstanding teaching assistants at the Dermot McAleese Teaching Awards. These prestigious awards recognise their exceptional dedication, effectiveness, and commitment to fostering excellence in teaching and learning.

The winners from the school’s four disciplines are:

• Doireann O’Brien from the Department of Economics
• Henry Potter from the Department of Philosophy
• Marina Schenkel from the Department of Political Science
• Imogen Eve from the Department of Sociology

Marina Schenkel (Political Science), Imogen Eve (Sociology), former Whately Professor of Political Economy Dermot McAleese, Henry Potter (Philosophy)

Established in 2012 with the support of former Whately Professor of Political Economy, Dermot McAleese, these awards highlight the important role teaching assistants play in enhancing students' learning experiences. The awards were presented by the Head of the School, Professor Paul O’Grady.

Award winners are selected through a nomination process that evaluates their creativity in tutorials, capacity to provoke critical thinking among students, responsiveness and interaction with students, organisational and problem-solving abilities, and the overall impact of their tutorials on the course.

2024 Dermot McAleese TA Award Winners

Doireann O’Brien is a first-year PhD candidate in Economics. She is in the early stages of the first paper of her thesis, investigating whether restricting access to sex-selective abortion increases child marriage incidences in India. Doireann aims to pursue a career in empirical research, focusing on gender and development.

Henry Potter is a PhD candidate in Philosophy. His research addresses philosophical issues of action and free will from a biological perspective. He seeks to develop an empirically grounded framework for understanding the agency of living systems and to explore its implications for traditional free will debates.

Marina Schenkel is a PhD candidate in Political Science. Her research examines the political determinants of adopting contrarian views in policy responses to public health emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic. She specializes in public policy, health policy, and computational methods, aspiring to continue researching and teaching in academia with a focus on issues relevant to the Global South.

Imogen Eve is a PhD candidate in Sociology. Her research, situated within the sociology of knowledge and education, focuses on epistemic decolonization and its intersections with nationalism and postcolonialism. Specifically, she explores the decolonization of higher education in the Republic of Ireland. Imogen aims to advance decolonial theory and influence curriculum reforms that promote epistemic decolonization in higher education, particularly in Ireland.

The overall standard of nominations this year was very high and the selection committee also awarded certificates of achievement to the following nominees who demonstrated a great commitment to their role: Jan Liedtke, Lucas Paulo da Silva, Rodolfo Pezzi and Claudia Peroni.