Kathleen McTiernan

Assistant Professor in Psychology

Research Interests

My area of research interest is Ageing and Wellbeing. I collect narratives of people who are ageing, and archive and publish them digitally. I have a strong commitment to research innovation and interdisciplinary research, evidenced by the publication of the Lifescapes Digital Archive, the Life History Digital Archive. Recently, I was awarded IRCHSS funding to develop The Life History Digital Archive. The website for the archive, currently under construction, http://thelifehistoriesarchive.com, acts as a portal through which the content, digitised autobiographies, which were written by older people, from Dublin and Belfast, can be accessed.

Selected Publications

• O'Donnell, D., & McTiernan, K. (forthcoming, 2012). Storied Lives: Connecting Life Course Narrative Identities and Eudemonic Happiness in Later Life. In I. Flaherty & A. Nicolas (Eds.), Times of Our Lives: Growing up, Growing Old. New York/Amsterdam: Rodopi.
• Quinn, A., Leahy, M. M., & McTiernan, K. (forthcoming, 2012). Evaluating Language Assessments with Members of the Travelling Community. Journal of Clinical Speech & Language Studies (to be included in Vol. 18; 2012)
• McTiernan, K. & O’Donnell, D. (2012). The Life History Digital Archive: Narratives facilitating intergenerational knowledge exchange.  University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, February, 2012.
• McTiernan, K. & O’Donnell, D. (2012). The meaningful life: Constructing eudemonic happiness in later life through storytelling. University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, February, 2012.
• McTiernan, K. & O’ Donnell, D. (2010). http://bridge-it.tchpc.tcd.ie/ Exhibition of the Lifescapes: Mapping Dublin Lives (Bridge-IT) Project Exhibited at the opening of the Long Room Hub, September, 2010.
• O'Donnell, D. & McTiernan, K. (2010). Storied Lives: An Exploration of Life Course Narrative Identities and the Factors Linked to Happiness in Later Life. Times of our Lives. Making Sense of: Growing up and growing old, 92, 146-159. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/ebooks/times-of-our-lives/
• Leahy, M., McTiernan, K., Smith, M.M., Sloane, P., Walsh, I., Walshe, M., Ni Cholmain, C. (2010). Foundation studies in education for therapy practice: curriculum updating, Folia Phoniatrica et Logopedica: Special Education Issue, 62, (2), pp255-259.
• McTiernan, K., Leahy, M., Walsh, I., Sloane, P., Smith, M. (2007). The ‘triple jump’ assessment in problem based learning: an evaluative method used in the appraisal of both knowledge acquisition and problem solving skills in, editor(s) G. O’Neill, S. Huntley-Moore, and P. Race, Case Studies of Good Practices in Assessment of Student Learning in Higher Education, Dublin, AISHE, 2007, pp116–119.
• Walsh, I., McTiernan, K., Leahy, M. (2007). Examining students’ clinical skills: assessment of the ‘unseen’ client in a speech and language therapy clinic in, editor(s) G. O’Neill, S. Huntley-Moore, and P. Race, Case Studies of Good Practices in Assessment of Student Learning in Higher Education, Dublin, AISHE, 2007, pp16–20.
• Leahy, M.M., Dodd, B.A., Walsh I.P, Murphy (McTiernan), K. (2006). Education for Practice in the UK and Ireland: Implementing problem based learning. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 58 (1), 48-54.

Teaching/Supervision

As the Psychologist in the Department of Clinical Speech and Language Studies (CSLS), I coordinate and teach a number of Psychology courses related to normal communication and to communication changes related to the lifecourse.  I also teach Research Methods and Statistics and coordinate the Sophistor research project.  I am involved in the supervision of Masters and PhD students in the CSLS and in the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies.  The following courses are my primary teaching responsibilities: Social and Developmental Psychology; Cognitive Neuropsychology; Research Methods and Statistics; Counselling.

Kathleen Tiernan on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Clinical Speech and Language Studies
Room No XXXX
Trinity College
7 - 9 South Leinster Street
Dublin 2

Telephone: +353 1 896 2947
Fax: +353 1 232 1005
Email: kathleen.mctiernan@tcd.ie