Primary Department
School of Chemical Sciences
Role
Academic Staff - Science Education
Phone number: 01 700
5000
Email Address
odilla.finlayson@dcu.ie
Academic biography
Odilla is a senior lecturer in Science Education in the School of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University (DCU). She was a recipient of the Teaching Fellowship in 2001 and the DCU President‘s Award for Teaching and Learning in 2007. She has served on the Education Council of the professional bodies RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) and ICI (Institute of Chemistry of Ireland) in several capacities and remains active on these bodies. She is involved in selection and training of the Irish teams for participation in the Olympiads IIJSO, EUSO and IChO and is the Country Co-ordinator for EUSO.
Research interests
She is actively involved in teacher education at both pre-service and in-service levels as well as science education to undergraduate science students. After 20 years working and researching in the area of heterogeneous catalysis, her research interests over the last 10 years are now focussed on science education, in particular on visualisation in chemistry teaching, inquiry based approaches in teaching science (chemistry) at all educational levels coupled with appropriate assessment of learning, and appropriate use of technology in teaching. She was the coordinator of the FP7 SAILS project and a member of the coordinating team on the FP7 ESTABLISH project.
