Dr Gabriel Coleman

Dr Gabriel Coleman is an environmental historian whose research explores the relationships between agriculture, industry, energy and the environment, with a particular interest in how human societies have transformed and responded to changing landscapes and resource systems.

Gabriel was awarded their PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2025.  Their doctoral research examined the history of agricultural pollution in contemporary Ireland, investigating how agricultural systems, industrialisation and changing understandings of nature and the environment have shaped patterns of nutrient use and environmental change. This research formed part of NuReCycle, an interdisciplinary project exploring diffuse agricultural water pollution and approaches to nutrient control, recovery and recycling.  Gabriel holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and an M.Phil. in Environmental History from Trinity College Dublin.

Gabriel is currently undertaking a research fellowship at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, where they are researching twentieth-century fertiliser manufacturing and the regional development programmes of the Tennessee Valley Authority. This work examines the connections between industrial agriculture, technological development, resource use and regional transformation.

Alongside this research, Gabriel is working with Lily Toomey on two projects marking the centenary of the Electricity Supply Board (ESB). In collaboration with the ESB Archives, they are researching and writing a book on the appropriation and transformation of indigenous energy sources for electricity generation in Ireland. They have also recently begun a project with the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment and the National Archives of Ireland to mark the centenary of the opening of Ardnacrusha. Together, these projects explore the environmental and social histories of energy production in Ireland and the ways in which natural resources, technological systems and national development have become intertwined.

Gabriel’s research interests encompass environmental history, agricultural and industrial development, energy history, resource use, and the changing relationships between societies and the environments on which they depend.

colemaga@tcd.ie