TRiCC Researchers: Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Economics, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy

• Gaia NarcisoAssociate Professor Research Interests: Development economics, migration, political economy, trade. TRiCC Management Board Member
• Carol NewmanProfessor Research Interests: Development Economics, Agricultural Economics, Applied Microeconometrics, Household/Individual Behaviour, Firm Behaviour

School of Education

Research undertaken by staff in the School of Education demonstrates a great diversity of scholarship with impact on policy and practice locally, nationally and internationally. This is illustrated by our current ranking of 88th in the QS world rankings for education. Staff at the School of Education conduct high quality research with children and young people on their learning, wellbeing and lived experiences. We have a track record of leading and participating in national and international research with projects funded by the EU, the IRC, the NCSE, the NCCA, the DES and DCYA among others.

The work of staff associated with TRiCC spans the formal and informal education sectors from early years to higher education and investigates a range of topics and curricular areas including the arts, languages and STEM education, inclusion, bullying and ICT in education. We work with children, parents, teachers, principals and policy-makers in order to have a positive impact on the educational experiences of children and young people in Ireland and beyond.

• Ann DevittAssistant Professor Research Interests: Language teaching and learning; computational, corpus and network science methods to explore computational and cognitive models of language processing and learning. TRiCC Management Board Member
• Nóirín HayesVisiting Professor Nóirín Hayes is Visiting Professor at the School of Education and Professor Emerita, Centre for Social and Educational Research, Dublin Institute of Technology. Working within a bio-ecological framework of development and through a child rights lens she researches in early childhood education and care (ECEC) with a particular focus on early learning, curriculum and pedagogy and ECEC policy.
• Keith JohnstonAssistant Professor Research Interests: Computer Education/Literacy; Teacher Education
• Andrew LoxleyAssociate Professor Research Interests: Social inclusion and exclusion; education and social policy with a current interest in higher education; all things methodological but with an emphasis on image based approaches and semiotics.
• Conor McGuckinAssistant Professor Research Interests: Educational policy and processes, educational psychology, bully/victim problems among children and adults, special educational needs, and the scientific study of religiosity.
• Noel Ó MurchadhaAssistant Professor Research Interests: Applied Linguistics; Celtic Linguistics; Folk Linguistics; Sociolinguistics; Sociology of Language
• Carmel O’SullivanAssociate Professor Research Interests: Early childhood education; Social Drama with children with autism spectrum disorder; arts education
• Erika PiazzoliAssistant Professor Research Interests: Aesthetics; Arts Education; classroom second language learning/acquisition ; Drama and theatre in education; Educational Psychology; Neuroscience; Teacher Education
• Susan PikeAssistant Professor Research Interests: Geographies of children, youth and families; Children and young peoples experiences and participation in local places, including schools and communities; Children and young peoples experiences of and roles in learning in geography, sustainability and outdoor education

School of English

• Jane Suzanne CarrollUssher Assistant Professor Research Interests: Children’s literature, material culture, and role of landscape and place in fiction
  
  Member of TRiCC Management Board & Children’s Research Network Advisory Committee.
• Pádraic WhyteAssociate Professor in Children’s Literature Research Interests: Representations of childhood and youth in Irish writing for adults and children; the National Collection of Children’s Books; gender and sexuality; queer children’s literature; New York City and children’s literature; theatre and film for children.

School of History and Humanities

• Lorraine McEvoyPhD Candidate, School of History & Humanities Research Interests: Lorraine McEvoy is a PhD candidate in the History Department and an early career researcher at the Trinity Long Room Hub. She also holds a BA in History and English Literature and an MPhil in International History from Trinity College Dublin. Her current research, which is funded by an Ussher Fellowship, explores initiatives for the recuperation of children in Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, with a focus on recuperative holidays. These involved sending groups of children abroad for short periods of time in order to restore their mental and physical well-being. She is working towards a transnational history of these schemes, while also using them as means to examine emotional histories of the aftermath and broader themes in the history of childhood, humanitarianism and the postwar period. She is a member of the history team at the Museum of Childhood Ireland

 

School of Law

Founded in 1740, Trinity School of Law is one of the leading Law Schools in Europe, consistently ranked as one of the top 100 Law Schools in the world. The Law School is a scholarly community of staff, students and alumni, dedicated to the pursuit of legal knowledge and critical engagement with the legal challenges that confront modern communities.

Staff at the Law School undertake research in relation to children and the law in a number of diverse areas, including children’s rights, family law, medical law, health and food law and refugee and immigration law.

• Samantha ArnoldAdjunct Assistant Professor Research Interests: Refugee and immigration law and policy; children’s rights law. PhD (completed 2017): “Protecting childhood: a children’s rights approach to the interpretation of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees”
• Patricia BrazilAveril Deverell Assistant Professor Research Interests: Family and child law, domestic immigration and asylum law and criminal law. TRiCC Management Board Member
• Caoimhín MacMaoláinAssociate Professor Research Interests: The prevention of childhood obesity and diet-related disease, and the use of law to assist in addressing this, and other, public health concerns.
• Andrea MulliganAssistant Professor Research Interests: Legal regulation of assisted human reproduction and surrogacy, child welfare and best interests in assisted human reproduction and surrogacy, identity rights of donor-conceived and surrogate-born children.

School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies

The School is recognised internationally for wide-ranging high-quality research on languages, literatures and cultures. Our research covers European Studies, French, Germanic Studies, Hispanic Studies, Irish and Celtic Languages, Italian, Near and Middle Eastern Studies and Russian and Slavonic Studies, spanning eras from the 5th century BCE to the 21st century. Our strengths broadly encompass Literary and Cultural Studies, including literary and cultural theory, social thought, narratology and imagology, film and textual and visual studies as well as questions surrounding language learning and translation studies. We also encourage comparative, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Our intellectual inquiry is in the service of national and international debate and knowledge advancement, particularly on the construction of identity and otherness in literature and culture. Our research culture also supports research-led undergraduate teaching and the postgraduate education of the researchers of the future.

• Rachel HoareAssistant Professor, Department of French Research Interests: Sociolinguistics, children, migration and identity with a particular interest in separated children seeking asylum and their experiences of trauma, coping strategies and friendships

School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences

The School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences' internationally influential research makes significant and transformative contributions to cross-cultural knowledge and understanding in a range of fields relevant for navigating cultural diversity.

• Amy ConneryAssistant Professor Research Interests: Developmental stuttering; Multi-stakeholder co-design of effective stuttering interventions; Developmental speech sound disorders; The influence of therapeutic alliance on treatment outcomes
• Lorna CarsonProfessor in Applied Linguistics, Centre for Language and Communication Studies Research Interests: Multilingualism and language learning research; the interface between individual and societal multilingualism, with a particular attention on the language classroom, with a focus on language learning, language education policy and assessment
• Yvonne LynchAssistant Professor, Clinical Speech & Language Studies Research Project: Identifying Appropriate Symbol Communication Aids for children who are non-speaking: enhancing clinical decision making.
  TRiCC Management Board Member
• Kathleen McTiernanAssistant Professor, Clinical Speech & Language Studies Research Interests: The psychology of language and communication, consisting of three interlinked strands: (1) identity formation and life-long learning, (2) comparative curriculum analyses, and (3) multilingualism and schooling in Ireland and Europe.
• Caitríona O’BrienPhD Researcher PhD Research: Applied Linguistics; Language acquisition; Family multilingualism; Deaf Studies; Language teaching and learning
• Sarah SheridanAssistant Professor, Centre for Language and Communication Studies Research Interests: Deaf Studies; Intercultural Studies; Irish Sign Language; Second language acquisition; sign language interpreting; Signed language teaching and learning; Sociolinguistics.
• Martine SmithProfessor in Clinical Speech and Language Studies Research Interests: Augmentative and alternative communication: the impact of severe speech and physical impairments on literacy development and working memory; language acquisition in aided communication; the impact of aided communication on interaction processes; perspectives of aided communicators. Developmental speech and language disorders; drooling and cerebral palsy language based literacy difficulties. (Dean of Graduate Studies)
• Margaret WalsheProfessor In, Clinical Speech and Language Studies Research Interests: Feeding and swallowing disorders in paediatric poulations; evidence based practice and implementation science

School of Psychology

The School of Psychology has long supported high quality, original research with children on their development and lived experiences. In 1995, along with the School of Social Work and Social Policy, it supported the establishment of the Children’s Research Centre, the predecessor of TRiCC, under the directorship of Psychology Professor Sheila Greene.

Today, staff at the School of Psychology associated with TRiCC apply their expertise using quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to investigate a wide range of topics such as early first language acquisition, child and adolescent health and wellbeing, peer relationships, the family as a context for children's development, clinical anxiety and physiological reactivity in children with Autism Spectrum Conditions, and the impact of early life experience on brain function, behaviour, and long-term mental health outcomes.

• Lorraine SwordsAssistant Professor/Co-Director of TRiCC Research Interests: Child health and well-being, peer interactions in the context of physical or mental health conditions in childhood and adolescence, help-seeking, help-giving and stigmatising responses. TRiCC Management Board Member
• Maeve BrackenAssistant Professor/Course Director Research Interests: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Developmental Disability, Special Education
• Rhodri CusackThomas Mitchell Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience Research Interests: Brain development of infants in their first year, perinatal brain injury, neuroimaging methods
• Olive HealyAssociate Professor in ABA Research Interests: Autism Spectrum Disorders, Developmental Disabilities, Inclusion.
• Clare KellyAssociate Professor Research Interests: Brain function, cognition, and behaviour in typical and atypical development; neurocognitive correlates of mental health across development.
• Margaret LawlerAssistant Professor Research Interests: Young people’s health, well-being and behaviour change with a particular emphasis on physical activity. Current research: Effectiveness of a peer-led motivational interviewing intervention to decrease smoking and alcohol consumption and increase exercise along adolescents from low SES communities
• Fiona NewellProfessor of Experimental Psychology Research Interests: Multisensory perception; Synaesthesia; Object recognition; Scene recognition; Face perception and facial attractiveness; Perception in visual impaired individuals; Dynamic object recognition; Visual, haptic and auditory perception; Perception of crowds; Perception of emotion; Ageing and multisensory perception.
• Elizabeth NixonAssociate Professor Research Interests: Parenting and family as a context for children’s development.
• Redmond O’ConnellProfessor in Decision Neuroscience Research Interests: Ageing, memory and other cognitive processes; Neurophysiology; Neuropsychology; Vision
• Jean QuigleyAssociate Professor Research Interests: Language development, with particular reference to early first language acquisition and to neurodevelopmental disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorders.
• Alina CosmaResearch Fellow Research Interests: Adolescent Heath and Psychology; Bullying; Child and Adolescent Health/Mental Health; Cross Cultural Studies; Cyberbullying; .

School of Social Work and Social Policy

The School of Social Work and Social Policy has long supported high quality, original research with children, including the policies and professional practices designed to improve their lives. In 1995, along with the School of Psychology, it supported the establishment of the Children's Research Centre, the predecessor of TRiCC.

Today, staff at the School of Social Work and Social Policy associated with TRiCC are involved in number of innovative research projects, including the study of the impact of early adversity on later health and social circumstances, and the identification of resilience factors, so as to better inform early interventions. Work on specific social issues such as young people leaving state care, the impact of domestic violence, and youth homeless sit alongside studies seeking to better understand children's lived experience in the context of interfamilial and intergenerational relationships.

• Sinead TobinAssistant Professor Research Interests: Child Protection, Child Welfare and Children in care, with a particular focus on prevention of abuse and maltreatment, understanding and responding to child abuse/maltreatment and ultimately supporting Child Protection systems to better meet the needs of children at risk of abuse and those in state care.
• Nicola CarrProfessor Research Interests: Youth Justice; welfare and justice interventions; children and young people in care; child protection and care; crime and justice.
• Eavan BradyAssistant Professor, Social Work Research Interests: Children and young people in care, care leavers, educational disadvantage, child welfare, biographical and life history methodologies, the life course perspective, research utilisation in social work practice
• Catherine ConlonAssistant Professor, Social Policy Research Interests: Women’s fertile bodies; socio-cultural surveillance of women’s sexual and reproductive bodies and intergenerational relations
• Susan FlynnAssistant Professor, Social Studies Research Interests: Child protection and disabled children in the Republic of Ireland; critical disability studies
• Edurne Garcia IriarteAssistant Professor, Social Policy Research Interests: Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities & the development & implementation of participatory research & evaluation approaches with people with disabilities, more specifically inclusive research with people with intellectual disabilities
• Robbie GilliganEmeritus Professor, Social Work and Social Policy Research Interests: Children and young people in challenging circumstances or with challenged status (public care, migration, ethnic diversity, disability, refugees etc); Sources of resilience and support; Experiences of key transitions and turning points; Children and youth policy issues in international development
• Stephanie HoltAssociate Professor, Head of School Research Interests: Child welfare and domestic violence, the impact on exposure to domestic abuse on children; the impact of domestic abuse on fathering and mothering; post separation contact; intimate partner homicide.
• Paula MayockAssociate Professor in Youth Research Research Interests: Biographical and qualitative longitudinal research methods; lives and experiences of marginalised youth, including homelessness, drug use and drug problems, sexuality, risk behaviour, and mental health
• Virpi TimonenProfessor, Social Policy and Ageing Research Interests: Intergenerational solidarity, experiences of and roles in old age, policy pertaining to older adults; life course and intergenerational family relations
• Louise CaffreyAssistant Professor Research Interests: Children’s experiences of protection and welfare approaches and systems, inspection of child and family systems, systems approaches for social work, evaluation of child and family services, policy and practice implementation, interprofessional/interorganisational working, performance measurement and management, realist evaluation.

Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy

Researchers in the Department of Sociology have long been interested in the role of childhood in shaping a child’s educational experience and their subsequent experience in life. Much of this interest was initially to understand the reproduction of social and economic inequalities in industrialised countries. The key issue was: is Ireland a meritocracy where children from all social background can succeed on an equal basis? The first professor of Sociology in the late 1960s, John Jackson, carried out the very first survey of social class mobility in Ireland (north and south) in 1973 to examine this question and discovered that Ireland was far from being a meritocracy.

An interest in social mobility and equality of opportunity is still alive in the Department, but the current generation of researchers now use highly detailed longitudinal data gathered through child cohort studies to examine how household of origin shapes a child’s development and subsequent success in life.

• Yekaterina ChzhenAssistant Professor, Sociology Research Interests: Poverty and income inequality; social stratification; inequalities in child well-being (education, health and life satisfaction); life course research; social policy; cross-national research; longitudinal data; quantitative methods.
• Richard LayteProfessor of Sociology Research Interests: The processes which influence the distribution of health and well-being in societies and how these are shaped by political economy and the structure and functioning of health care systems. TRiCC Management Board Member
• Jan SkopekAssociate Professor, Sociology Research Interests: Family and social stratification, sociology of child development, social demography, life course research, cross-national comparison, and quantitative methodology
• Rodolfo PezziPhD Candidate Research Interests: the sociology of education, social stratification, quantitative methods, the school-to-work transition, social class, inequality, and social exclusion

TRiCC Collaborators and Associates

• Dr Riikka Korkiamäki, University of Tampere, Finland Collaborating with Professor Robbie Gilligan on their joint research project ‘Working with Young People Facing Marginalisation’.