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2024 Visiting Professor Equality Diversity and Inclusion Series

 

Professor Andrew King, University of Surrey

Andrew King is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. He is an expert on LGBTQ+ inequalities across the life course, although the majority of his research has focused on the lives and experiences of older LGBTQ+ people. He has focused recent research on housing and LGBTQ+ people, with ground-breaking studies and impact activities around those living in social housing as well as the concerns many older LGBTQ+ people have where they live later in life. Andrew worked with LGBTQ+ communities, support organisations and housing providers to develop the UK’s first LGBTQ+ social housing equality framework, the HouseProud Pledge Scheme. Alongside his LGBTQ+ focused research, Andrew is Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Ageing and Generations (CRAG), the Sex, Gender and Sexualities (SGS) Research Group at Surrey and an associate editor of the journals Ageing and Society and Sociology.

Dr. Clíona Ní Cheallaigh

Clíona Ní Cheallaigh is an Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine physician. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2003 with a first-class honors degree and a TCD Gold Medal. She started her specialist training in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine in 2007. In 2008, she was a recipient of an Irish Health Research Board/Health Services Executive National SpR Academic Fellowship Award, which funded integrated training as a clinical academic. She completed her specialist training in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine in 2016. Clíona Ní Cheallaigh is an infectious diseases and internal medicine physician in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, and Senior Lecturer in Medical Gerontology. She brings to TILDA clinical and research expertise in immunology, social determinants of health, health equity, and implementation.

Clíona Ní Cheallaigh’s research seeks to look at the effect of socio-economic status/ psychosocial stress on ageing. She hypothesizes that this is through stress causing chronic low grade activation of the innate immune system. Her cellular biology work is informed by her doctorate studies in the Department of Immunology at Trinity College Dublin, culminating in the Immunity publication of findings on a novel role for the signaling adaptor protein, Mal. Her immunological interests lie within innate immunity – particularly autophagy – and with examining the mechanisms through which psychosocial stress causes immune activation and through which low-grade chronic inflammation affects brain health and aging.

Dr Ní Cheallaigh is also Clinical Lead of a pilot Inclusion Health Service in St James’s Hospital dedicated to improving access to specialist hospital care for homeless and other marginalized individuals. She is developing an adaptation of TILDA methodology to study premature ageing in long-term homeless adults in Dublin.

Download Cliona's presentation here (opens as a PDF)

Dr. Jo-Hanna Ivers
Associate Professor, Public Health & Primary Care

Jo-Hanna is an Associate Professor in Addiction. She holds the only addiction specific academic post in Ireland. She is the first Associate Dean of Civic Engagement and Social Innovation at Trinity College Dublin. Jo-Hanna leads the Neurobehavioural Addiction Research Group at the Department of Public Health & Primary Care, School of Medicine. She is the Director of the M.Sc. in Addiction Recovery. She has been appointed by a number of Ministers and Government Representatives to Special Taskforces and Expert Review Groups examining drug and alcohol use. She is a Member of the European Monitoring Centre on Drug and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) Scientific Committee.

Jo-Hanna's research focuses on the biological, social and environmental factors that contribute to an individual's vulnerability to dependence and addiction. Her research includes interventions, policies and practices that help develop recovery pathways. These pathways are best understood as a spectrum and include harm reduction, abstinence and long-term recovery. Her populations of interest include people who use drugs, those experiencing addiction, individuals in recovery, their families, communities affected by drug use and wider members of society. Before returning to academia, Jo-Hanna gained extensive experience working with adolescent and adult populations in specialist addiction services.

Download Jo-Hanna's presentation here (opens as a PDF)

Adam Spollen (He/Him)
Policy Officer at Focus Ireland

LLM graduate (I:I) in Migration and Refugee Law and recipient of the Kate Coakley Memorial Prize having achieved the highest overall marks across all LLM programmes at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway.

My research interests include housing and homelessness policy, refugee and migration law and policy, and the intersectionality of these areas.
I have experience working in legal and policy research with the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, with a number of legal academics, as well as within the Irish NGO sector.

Download Adam's presentation here (opens as a PDF)

Mr Michael Foley

Michael Foley is the Civic Engagement and Social Innovation Manager for Trinity.

Prior to this role, he was the Programme Manager for Trinity's PPI Ignite Office, promoting public and patient involvement in health-related research, and had been a Research & Development Officer in the Trinity Centre for Ageing and Intellectual Disability (TCAID).

Outside of Trinity, he was Research Module Coordinator on the Masters in Mediation and Conflict Intervention in the Edward M Kennedy Institute for Conflict Intervention in Maynooth University.

He has worked as a Senior Manager for the NGO Age & Opportunity and has run the National Disability Authority's Research Library. He also has many years of experience in freelance copywriting, editing, research and facilitation work.

With an MSc in Applied Social Research, Michael has a particular interest in research translation and impact, with a particular focus on how public policy, the NGO sector and the research sector interact.

Today's event was hosted in collaboration with Trinity's Civic Engagement and Social Innovation (CESI) Unit, and facilitated by Michael. To contact Michael, he can be reached at MFOLEY3@tcd.ie

Ms Lena Doherty

Ms Lena Doherty is the Faculty Administrator for Health Sciences in Trinity College Dublin, having worked previously in the schools of Dental Science and Nursing & Midwifery during her 20 years with Trinity. Lena is a founding member of the Healthy Trinity committee as well as having established the Faculty's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Group. She is a graduate of UCD with a BA (Hons) in English and Greek & Roman Civilisation, and holds a Diploma in Project Management from Dublin Business School. 

Lena was recipient of the 2022-23 Dean's Award for Professional & Support Staff (Positivity Champion), and 2022 awardee of the Trinity Civic Engagement Award (Best Civic Engagement Initiative) for her ongoing work with the Academic Primary Care Collaborative, Tallaght.

Today's event was hosted by the Faculty of Health Sciences, as part of the EDI Visiting Professor Series. This series has been running since 2022.

If you would like to get in touch with Lena, she can be reached at ldohert@tcd.ie

 

Ms Amhairgín Ní Laoi

Ms Amhairgín Ní Laoi is the Athena Swan Project Manager for Health Sciences. The Athena SWAN Charter is an international framework that seeks to support and transform gender equality within higher education and research. Amhairgín also has a role in growing and developing the Faculty Equality, Diversity Inclusion (EDI) Group alongside the Faculty Administrator.

Amhairgín supports the Faculty EDI Group to achieve its objectives of harnessing the interest and enthusiasm of those with a willingness to get involved, to create more visibility around EDI in Health Sciences, and to raise the level of debate and engagement with any of the nine grounds of equality. As such, her expertise is varied and her perspective is wide, making her the the ideal contributor to events on intersectionality of excluded populations.

Amhairgín is currently undergoing the Aurora Women in Leadership programme, which is a leadership ignition journey, inspiring women to aspire and achieve leadership positions within higher education.

If you would like to get in touch with Amhairgín, she can be reached at nilaoiam@tcd.ie

Professor Andrew King's presentation can be viewed below, download the slides here (opens as PDF)

 

Photographs from the event:

LGBTQI+ Homelessness Event

March 8th, follow-up webinar:
Exploring funding opportunities for academic research projects, and opportunitites to utilise open access repositories as a resource.