People

Prof Debbie Ging is the Director of DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities. She also leads Strand 2 Gender, Sexuality and New Technologies.

Debbie is Professor of Digital Media and Gender in the School of Communications at Dublin City University She teaches and researches on gender, sexuality and digital media, with a focus on digital hate, online anti-feminist men's rights politics, the incel subculture and radicalisation of boys and men into male supremacist ideologies. Debbie’s research also addresses youth experiences of gender-based and sexual abuse online and educational interventions to tackle the influence of the mansophere. She sits on the government-commissioned Online Health Taskforce in Ireland and has acted as expert advisor to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education + Skills, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, and the Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN) of the European Commission, among others. Debbie is Ireland Corresponding Editor of the journal Men and Masculinities and is a member of the editorial boards of New Media and Society and Feminist Media Studies. 

Dr Paola Rivetti is a Vice Director of the DCU Institute for Genders and Sexualities. She co-leads Strand 1 Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice

Paola Rivetti is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations in the School of Law and Government, DCU. Her research interests lie at the intersection of transnational political authoritarianism, activism, and gender. She is a scholar of South-West Asian and North African politics. She has a long experience of working in Iran, Turkey, and North Africa, researching contentious politics and social movements. Currently, her research work investigates the gendered dynamics of authoritarian diffusion between Italy, Iran, and transnationally. 

Dr Rivetti is author of Political Participation in Iran from Khatami to the Green Movement (2020), which she presented in numerous universities across Europe, North America and the Middle East; and co-editor of Islamists and the Politics of the Arab Uprisings: Governance, Pluralisation and Contention (2018), We’ve Come A Long Way. Reproductive Rights of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Ireland (2018), Continuity and Change Before and After the Arab Uprisings. Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt (2015), and Civil Society in Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and Iran (2010). Her work is published in the most important scientific journals.

Dr Rivetti is an Associate Editor at the journals Iranian Studies and Partecipazione e conflitto. Her research has been funded by the European Union, the Irish Research Council, Enterprise Ireland, Gerda Henkel Foundation, Giovanni Goria Foundation, and others. In 2018, she was awarded the Early-Career Researcher of the Year Prize by the Irish Research Council and received the DCU President's Award for Excellence in Research.

As an academic and an intellectual, Dr Rivetti contributes to public debates and is involved in a number of cultural and professional initiatives. In 2018, she was a TED talk speaker for Trinity College Dublin, with a talk titled What’s wrong with solidarity. She co-directs the book series Queer voices from the Middle East and its diasporas, for the Italian feminist publisher Le Plurali. She is a Council member of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, a member of the Mentorship Committee of the Association for Iranian Studies and of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Italian Society for Middle East Studies (SeSaMO). She regularly consults the policy-making community and comments on current affairs for numerous media internationally.

Dr Arpita Chakraborty is currently the Vice Director of the Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities. Her work lies at the cross section of gender, migration and diasporic studies from a postcolonial feminist perspective. She is the Principle Investigator of a project (2022-26) on migrant South Asian women’s experience of accessing support services in Ireland. She is specifically interested in looking at how ideas around gender, masculinities, and caste migrate transnationally and how it affects migrant women of colour in Europe. She actively seeks to collaborate with civil society partners outside academia in the co-production of knowledge and the communication of research findings for societal impact. She serves as the Associate Editor of Nordic Journal of Migration Research, and Academic Expert at the Institute of Domestic Violence, Religion, & Migration.

Her work has been published in leading international peer-reviewed publications including International Feminist Journal of Politics, Economic and Political Weekly, Religion and Gender, Routledge, and Cambridge University Press. She has led three research projects worth more than €500,000 funded by the Irish Research Council, and Ireland India Institute, and collaborated on various international research projects. In the School of Law and Government, she has created and taught modules on postcolonial politics, gender studies and masculinity studies to DCU’s undergraduate and postgraduate students. In her former role as an Editor, she has been in charge of the production of 13 top rated academic journals from Sage Publications.

Dr Priyanka Talwar is a Research Assistant and administrator at the Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities. 

Please get in touch for any queries regarding the Institute or membership here:

priyanka.talwar@dcu.ie OR irgs@dcu.ie 

Maria Loftus is an Assistant Professor at Dublin City University whose teaching and research champion inclusivity and social empathy. Specialising in creative co-design, postcolonial film, and innovative language pedagogies, she works to broaden participation in higher education. A member of the Irish Refugee Integration Network, she leads community-based initiatives that support women, migrants, and multilingual learners, fostering equitable learning environments where diverse identities and voices are recognised and empowered.  

Dr Seán Mac Risteaird’s research interests include sexuality studies, gender, and cultural and literary criticism. He organised a two-day academic event on sexuality and eroticism in Irish language studies as part of the Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride Festival in June 2021. Seán also edited a special edition of the literary magazine Comhar which focused on queerness in 2023. His monograph, Teanga don Tost (Arlen House), the first monograph in Irish that deals with queerness, was published in 2024 and was awarded the ACIS (American Conference for Irish Studies) Irish Language Research Book of the Year in 2025. He co-edited a collection of essays on the life and work of Micheál Ó Conghaile with Professor Ciarán Mac Murchaidh, entitled An Fear a Dhéanann Gaisce (2025). In November 2025, he co-organised a symposium on gender-based violence with Dr Síobhra Aiken from QUB.
 

Maura Conway is Paddy Moriarty Professor of Government and International Studies in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University (DCU) in Dublin, Ireland; Professor of Cyber Threats in CYTREC at Swansea University, UK; and founding Coordinator of VOX-Pol (voxpol.eu). Prof. Conway’s principal research interests are in the area of terrorism and the Internet, including cyberterrorism, the functioning and effectiveness of violent extremist online content, and online radicalisation. She is the author of over 60 articles, reports, and chapters in her specialist area(s). Her research has appeared in, amongst others, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Criminology & Public Policy, and Social Science Computer Review. Prof. Conway has presented her findings before the United Nations in New York, the Commission of the European Union in Brussels, the UK House of Lords, and elsewhere. She is a member of the Academic Steering Committee of Europol’s Counter-terrorism Centre’s Advisory Network on Terrorism and Propaganda and the Research Advisory Board of the European Commission’s Knowledge Hub on radicalisation. Previous appointments include membership of the Commission on the Future of the [Irish] Defence Forces (2020 - 2022).

Kenneth McDonagh is Associate Professor of International Relations in the School of Law and Government. He was the Head of School from 2021-2024 and Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences from 2019-2021. His research is focused on EU Foreign Policy and Common Security and Defence Policy, the role of small states in CSDP, and the gendered impact of CSDP missions. He has published on the EU as a global actor, the gendered impact of CSDP missions and contributed to policy papers and training activities in the area of Women,  Peace and Security and CSDP. 

E-mail: kenneth.mcdonagh@dcu.ie

Tel: + 353 1 700 6476

Research Areas: CSDP, Small States and Women, Peace and Security in EU external action.

DCU profile

Erika Biagini is Assistant Professor in Security Studies in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. Her area of expertise lies at the intersection of Islamism, gender and politics. She lived extensively in Egypt, where she conducted research on the Muslim Brotherhood and the activism of its female members, the Muslim Sisterhood, in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising. Her current research interests address the areas of subjectivity, identity and feminist politics among Islamist women activists, the gender politics and sexuality of Islamist movements and the evolution of Islamism, and of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in particular, since the 2013 repression. 

Yvonne Daly, BCL (University College Cork), PhD (Trinity College Dublin) is Professor of Criminal Law and Evidence in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University, and co-director of the Irish Méndez Centre for Investigative Interviewing.

She is an expert on criminal evidence and procedure, with a specific research focus on effective criminal defence and the legal regulation of criminal investigations. She engages in doctrinal, comparative, and empirical research which explores the law in action. Her research advocates for the practical and effective protection of individual rights, specifically in relation to suspects under criminal investigation.  

Prof Daly is currently Vice-Chair of COST Action 22128 - ImpleMendez - which aims to develop research networks to support the worldwide implementation of the so-called “Mendez Principles” on effective investigative interviewing.

Mel Duffy is Associate Professor of Sociology and Sexuality Studies in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy & Community Health at Dublin City University, Ireland. She teaches and researches on LGBTQI+, sexuality, health and illness and hermeneutic phenomenology, with a focus on understanding the lived person of a phenomena, growing old in society,  the everyday life of LGBTQI+ people to developing competent, sexually literate and enabling folk to be comfortable in the use of language, sexuality in all its formats and the cultural spaces they find ourselves in. These spaces may be offices, school classrooms, clinical settings, playgrounds, youth clubs, to name just a few.

Mel’s research also addresses the difficulties people face in being themselves in society, the experiences of marginalisation, discrimination and being invisible. She is co-author of Doing Hermeneutic Phenomenological Research: A Practical Guide (SAGE, 2020) and has published on lesbian healthcare, activism, intellectual disabilities, growing old in society and end of life. All of her work is underpinned from a human rights perspective regardless of how the individual presents themselves in society.

E-mail: mel.duffy@dcu.ie

Tel: 01-7005833

Research Areas: Sexuality research; Experiences of LGBTQI across the lifespan  Methodologically the use of hermeneutical phenomenology to understand everyday life experiences; LGBTQI health research  and the effects of health and illness on the individual’s participation in society. Inequalities in health and  Issues of inclusion and diversity in society.

DCU profile

Janine Silga is an Assistant Professor in European Union Law at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University (Ireland). Prior to that, she held postdoctoral positions at the University of Luxembourg and at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy). She completed her PhD in Law at the European University Institute of Florence (Italy). Her doctoral research dealt with the legal dimension of the migration – development nexus in the European Union policy framework. Her research focuses on EU migration law and policy, and on the EU development policy. She has also done substantial research on human rights in connection to both migration and asylum. In addition to her academic activities, she has worked with several institutions, including non-governmental organisations.

Her most recent publications include: ‘The ambiguity of the European Union policy discourse on the Migration and Development Nexus: Perpetuating the Colonial Legacy?’ published in UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs (Spring 2020) and ‘La Protection de la Victime Contre la Haine Raciale: Le Point de Vue de la Victime’ (translation and commentary of Mari Matsuda’s article: ‘Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story’), in H. Bentouhami and M. Möschel (eds.), Critical Race Theory: une introduction aux grands textes fondateurs (Dalloz, 2017). Her ongoing research projects include: The Migration-Development Nexus in the European Union Policy Framework – A Legal Perspective (Cambridge University Press, under contract) and 'Migration, Asylumn and EU Anti-Discrimination Law', in O' Cinneide, Colm; Ringelheim, Julie; Solanke, Iyiola (eds.), Edward Elgar Research Handbook on European Anti-Discrimination Law.

Valesca Lima is Assistant Professor in Politics at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University, Ireland. She teaches and researches on participatory democracy, social policy, housing and urban studies and social mobilisation. In relation to gender, she focuses on the political participation of vulnerable groups (such as migrant women of colour) at the local level and political violence against women in politics. She has published on the financialisation of housing, challenges of citizen engagement in policy making and local government issues. Valesca is currently co-editor of the International Review of Public Policy (IRPP), the open access journal of the International Public Policy Association (IPPA); and co-convenor of the PSAI's Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group.

E-mail: valesca.lima@dcu.ie

Tel: 01 700 6812

Research Areas: Comparative politics, Governance, Housing and Urban Policy, Housing Justice, Political Participation, Citizen Engagement, Democratic Innovations, Citizen Social Science and Social Movements

DCU profile

Dr. Tanya Ní Mhuirthile joined the School of Law and Government in September 2015, having previously held positions in both Griffith College and University College Cork. A graduate of University College Cork (BCL 2000, LLB 2005, PhD 2010) and  the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (MDra 2002), Tanya teaches undergraduate modules in the ares of Equity,  Trusts, Irish Legal System and Law and Body Politics.

Tanya's research interrogates the interaction between the body and law and draws on human rights law, medical law, law and gender theory and feminist jurisprudence. Tanya is a legal consultant to both Transgender Equality Network Ireland and IntersexUK. She has advised advised Government ministers, public representatives and civil and public servants on the drafting of legislation and the development of public policy in particular in relation to the Criminal Justice (Female Genital Mutilation) Act, 2012 and Gender Recognition Bill 2013, Legal Recognition of Gender Bill, 2013 and the Gender Recognition Act 2015, including: the Minister for Social Protection, the Minister of State at the Dept of Social Protection with Special Responsibility for Activitation, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and other Oireachtas members.

Dr Sabina Stan is assistant Professor in Sociology and Anthropology in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health, at DCU, Ireland. Her research has dealt with the post-socialist transformation of Romanian agriculture, healthcare reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, European east-west migration, cross-border patient mobility in Europe, unevenness in the European healthcare space, and collective action in response to healthcare privatisation and healthcare worker mobility in Europe. She has published with CNRS Editions (Paris), Routledge, Oxford, Cambridge, and Rowman & Littlefield, as well as in journals such as Social Science and Medicine, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Medical Anthropology, Journal of European Social Policy, and Labor History. She has also acted as Senior Social Scientist in an ERC-funded project looking at labour politics and the new European economic governance (https://www.erc-europeanunions.eu). She is currently conducting research on the politicisation of alternative approaches to health and illness, which started with a study on health-related protests during the Covid-pandemic.

Saumava Mitra is an Assistant Professor at the School of Communications of Dublin City University, Ireland. He teaches and researches on the relationship of media with violent and social conflicts focusing particularly on visual communication and cross-border journalism. He is interested in understanding socio-economic, geopolitical and gendered inequities that create conditions of precarity for media producers, particularly journalists, journalism-adjacent workers, and photographers working in marginalised contexts.

Mitra’s previous research on precarious lives and livelihood of journalists and news-fixers working for international media, women photographers working transnationally based in Global South contexts, and Afghan photojournalists working for international media has been published in research handbooks and anthologies as well as in many journalism including Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice and International Journal of Press/Politics. He is the co-editor of two special issues of Journalism Studies and Journalism on these topics. Beginning in 2021, he served as Vice-Chair and then Chair of the Visual Communication Studies division of International Communication Association and on the editorial board of the journal Media, War & Conflict.

E-mail: saumava.mitra@dcu.ie

Tel: 01-7005448

Research Areas: Cross-border journalism, Gender, Journalist Safety, Precarious labour, Trans-national media, Photojournalism, Visual Communication, Fixers, Global South.

DCU profile

Dr. Tracey Harrington is a nurse, lecturer, educator, psychotherapist and researcher with extensive experience in sexual health education and a deep commitment to supporting marginalised communities. For the past two decades she has taught a third-level module on sexual health and provided sex education at second-level schools, helping to foster a greater understanding of healthy relationships and sexuality. Dr. Harrington promotes and challenges her students to challenges traditional boundaries, social norms and gender roles and promotes inclusivity and social justice.

Her academic and professional background includes a BSc in Nursing, an MSc Psychotherapy and a PhD in Clinical Medicine which together inform her trauma-informed approach to therapy and education. Dr. Harrington has been pivotal in the introduction of Consent Workshops to DCU and the adaptation of the Bystander Initiative module for staff and students, initiatives that have helped foster a culture of respect and active participation in combating sexual violence.

She has is a member of the committee focused on educating healthcare workers on human trafficking and has been a board member for a domestic violence charity, Sonas. Her strong working relationships with organisations such as Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Women’s Aid, Men’s Aid, Active Consent, and UCC Bystander Program have enabled her to actively contribute to efforts to combat gender-based violence.

As a member of DCU’s Care and Connect committee, Dr. Harrington focuses on promoting healthy relationships and fostering campus-wide initiatives to support students. She also has extensive connections with national organisations, including the National Women's Council of Ireland and Shoutout.ie, an LGBTQI organisation, where she collaborates to advocate for gender and sexual equality. Dr. Harrington has hosted numerous national and international speakers on topics related to sex, sexuality, and gender-based violence, contributing to critical discussions and advancing knowledge on these essential issues.

Dr Leanne Coll is a lecturer on the Graduate Diploma in SPHE-RSE at DCU's Institute of Education (IoE), and is co-convenor of the Gender & Sexualities Special Interest Group (SIG) for the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI). Her research explores the possibilities of co-productive and creative methodologies to transform sexuality education with young people and educators. Leanne has led both national and international externally-funded research, which has informed the development of evidence-based curriculum resources and professional learning programmes.

Qi Zhang is an assistant professor of Chinese in the School of Communications at Dublin City University, Ireland. She teaches a wide range of subjects, from semi-specialised translation to literature, culture and society. Her recent research interests are narratives in translation, bilingual education and language attitudes. Qi’s research also addresses the topic of gender in language education and language use. She has authored a number of refereed articles and book chapters on Chinese language education among ethnic minorities,  language attitudes and translation pedagogy.

E-mail: qi.zhang@dcu.ie 

Tel: 01-7005199

Olga Springer is Assistant Professor in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University, Ireland. She is a member of the Executive Committee of FRINGE Urban Narratives. From 2019 until 2022, she was a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Comparative Literature (ESCL), and from 2015 until 2022 editor of the Society’s Newsletter. Current projects include a co-edited special issue of Literary Geographies on “Sexual Imaginaries of the Literary Underground” (with Jean-Philippe Imbert, forthcoming in 2025) and the MA in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dublin City University (from 2025/26). 

E-mail: olga.springer@dcu.ie

Tel: 01-7005463

Research Areas: Ambiguity in literary texts; gender and sexuality in literary texts; urban literary studies; comparative literature; intertextuality.

Alicia Castillo Villanueva is an Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Gender at Dublin City University. Before joining DCU, she held various academic positions at University College Cork and the University of Limerick. She earned her primary degree in Hispanic Philology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a Higher Diploma in Education from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Additionally, she holds an MA in Hispanic Studies and Literary Translation from University College Cork (UCC) and a PhD in Gender Studies from the University of Limerick. In the field of teaching and learning, Alicia has exhibited notable leadership and innovation. Awarded with the Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), she has served in key positions, including Chair and Deputy Chair of the Bachelor of Arts (Joint Honours, FHSS). During her term, she drove significant advancements and made major contributions to programme development, particularly through substantive and successful innovations in curriculum design. Other roles she has held include Teaching and Learning Convenor for the BA Joint Honours and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Convenor. Moreover, Alicia has shown exceptional leadership in advancing gender equality at DCU and in society. She was the Chair of the successful School application for the Athena Swan Bronze award in November 2023 and a recipient of the Aurora award for women in leadership in 2022.

Fiona Murphy (fiona.b.murphy@dcu.ie) is an anthropologist based in the School of Applied Language & Intercultural Studies (SALIS) in Dublin City University. As an anthropologist of displacement, she works with Stolen Generations in Australia and people seeking asylum and refuge in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Turkey. She has a particular passion for creative and public anthropologies and is always interested in experimenting with new forms and genres. She is the author of a number of short stories and creative non-fiction pieces. She is currently co-editing a volume which brings together cross-genre creative work in anthropology. She has also produced a short film with Maria Loftus entitled “Ordinary Treasures: Objects from Home,’ which asks people seeking refuge to speak about the objects they brought with them from home. She is co-author of Integration in Ireland: The everyday life of African migrants in Ireland (Manchester University Press: 2012) and you can listen to her Tedx talk on displacement here.

Dr David O’Mullane is a part-time lecturer in gender and sexuality studies and a member of the Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities (IRGS) at Dublin City University (DCU). His PhD research, "Haunted Sex: Queer Art and the Spectral Politics of Cruising," utilised representations of cruising cultures in contemporary art and theory to explore how the past informs gay/queer sexual politics in the present. His research and teaching interests encompass queer and critical theory, sexuality and migration studies, and visual cultures.

Email: david.omullane@dcu.ie

Research areas: Queer Theory, Sexual Politics, Hauntology, Memory Studies

Dr. Ray O’Neill is Assistant Professor in Psychotherapy with DCU's School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health and a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist in private practice working mainly, but not exclusively within the LGBTQ community. As one of Ireland’s few resident male Agony Aunts, a regular contributor to The Ray Darcy Show, and co-fronting RTE’s Then Comes Marriage Ray works significantly (and sometimes with significance) with the media in discoursing love, relationships, and desire in the twenty-first century. Current research explores relationships between desire and contemporary modern technologies; and the individual and collective transmission of trauma across generations, with particular emphasis on the Irish Famine experiences.

Anne Matthews is a Full Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy & Community Health at Dublin City University, Ireland. She is a Registered General Nurse and Registered Midwife and studied social policy at University College Dublin and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her PhD was a study of power and empowerment in midwifery in Ireland. She has worked in nursing, midwifery, health and social research, education, policy and practice in Ireland, England and Malawi. She teaches and researches on maternal and child health, reproductive and sexual health rights, power and empowerment, global health inequities and challenges and sustainable development. 

Anne’s research also addresses health and community systems and services and in particular the workforce needed to provide safe and equitable care. She is a Director of the NGO Beyond Stigma, a member of the Audit and Evaluation Committee of the Dept of Foreign Affairs and a member of the National Research Ethics Committees for Clinical Trials.

E-mail: anne.matthews@dcu.ie 

Tel: 01-7008957

Research Areas: Global health; Health equity; Sustainable development and health; Breastfeeding policy and supports; Maternal, newborn and child health and services; Sexual and reproductive health, rights and services; Nursing & midwifery workforce planning; Measuring empowerment in nursing and midwifery. Systematic Reviews; Scoping Reviews; Survey design, scale development and testing.  

DCU profile

Dr Áine Travers is an Assistant Professor at the DCU School of Psychology. She is interested in using participatory and interdisciplinary approaches to examine psychological trauma, violence prevention, and the social and structural determinants of mental health.

Áine is currently Principal Investigator (PI) of The ECHO Project, a longitudinal study of experiences and impacts of intimate partner violence in the LGBTQ+ community in Ireland and the UK, funded by the Wellcome Trust. She is also PI of a Research Ireland-funded project examining sexual violence experiences and help-seeking among LGBTQ+ people. Previously, she led a research partnership between DCU and Makerere University in Uganda, exploring drivers of the relationship between armed conflict and intimate partner violence.

DCU Profile

Denise is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health. She has both clinical and research experience in the area of HIV/sexual health and is interested in how sexual health affects physical and mental wellbeing and vice versa.  She holds a Doctorate in Health from University of Bath, UK. She has interest in the area of marginalisation and health with a particular focus on gender. She developed and teaches an undergraduate module Sexuality and Sexual health for nursing practice.

She is a qualitative researcher with narrative and participatory research expertise and has worked on a variety studies  including (2024-2025) a cross sectional approach to examine the HIV care outcomes/ challenges and barrier for women living with HIV in direct provision, (2020-2022) nurse-led COVID-19 interventions among homeless populations, (2019) Developed and led  a community research study exploring the impact of addiction and mental illness.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-denise-proudfoot-8b084265/

Dr Jennifer Martyn is Assistant Professor in the School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies, where she currently lectures in (applied) French. She obtained her PhD in Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition from University College Dublin for which she received an IRC scholarship. Her research and supervision encompass two principal strands, sitting broadly within the field of sociocultural linguistics. The first strand investigates the relationship between identity, discourse, and second/foreign language learning, including multilingual perspectives and pedagogical practice. The second, most recent research strand focuses on the language and discourse of motherhood as it relates to identity, particularly in relation to the workplace. She is author of the monograph Discourses, Identities and Investment in Foreign Language Learning (2022), with current projects including the study ‘Mother Identity in the Workplace’ and co-authoring an inclusive linguistics textbook (Routledge). 

jennifer.martyn@dcu.ie

01 700 6396 

Catherine Baker is a postdoctoral researcher with the Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities (IRGS) at Dublin City University (DCU) and a Fellow with the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism (IRMS). Her research focuses on online misogyny, masculinities, algorithmic radicalisation, educational interventions, digital platforms, pseudoscience, and anti-gender movements.

Catherine has a PhD in Media and Communications from Loughborough University’s Online Civic Centre, awarded in 2023. Her PhD thesis focused on how misogynist incel mobilises specific digital affordances and rhetorical strategies to disseminate and legitimise male supremacist ideology. Recent publications include the report “Recommending Toxicity: the role of algorithmic recommender functions on YouTube Shorts and TikTok in promoting male supremacist influencers”.

E-mail: catherine.baker@dcu.ie

Research Areas: Gender, digital media, online misogyny, male supremacism, the manosphere, misogynist incels, algorithmic radicalisation, pseudoscience, anti-gender movements

Verónica Ferreira holds a PhD in Discourses: History, Culture, and Society from the University of Coimbra Centre for Social Studies. Her doctoral research was part of the project “CROME. Crossed Memories, Politics of Silence. The Colonial-Liberation Wars in Postcolonial Times” (ERC-2016-StG-715593). She also has a BA in Political Science and International Relations, an MA in International Relations, and a postgraduate degree in Strategic and Security Studies from NOVA University of Lisbon. She worked as a research assistant at the University of Aveiro before being awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by FAPESP (process n. 2024/01549-0) at the University of São Paulo Centre for the Study of Violence. There, she researched masculinities and gender discourse on Brazilian YouTube channels. Recently, she received an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship to undertake her project “The MANOSphere Pill: Pathways of Boys and Men into Online Male Supremacism in Portugal and Ireland” (n. 101153494) supervised by Debbie Ging at the Dublin City University Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities. Her current research interests include political and media representations, gender studies, decolonial studies, discourses on violence, digital memories, critical discourse analysis, critical internet studies, and education policies.

Shane Murphy is postdoctoral researcher whose work focuses on online radicalisation, masculinity, and far-right extremism, often employing qualitative methods, and engaging directly with those whose beliefs are not represented in the mainstream. In 2023, Shane received a PhD in Communications from Dublin City University for his research which involved interviewing Involuntary Celibates (Incels), in order to understand the processes through which they come to hold their extreme beliefs, and the real life conditions and experiences that can facilitate this radicalisation.   Shane also worked as part of a multidisciplinary team, producing a report titled ‘The Impact of the Use of Social Media on Women and Girls’ for the EU Parliament, where he covered the harms social media posed to women and girls at both and individual and a societal level, and has contributed to the Con.Cel project, which seeks to map out the online “InCelosphere” and track its dynamics of contagion.

E-mail: murphy.shane@dcu.ie 

Research Areas: Online radicalisation, masculinity, extreme online subcultures, incels, engaged research

Valeria Resta is a post-doctoral fellow at Dublin City University (DCU). Her researches deal with the functioning of authoritarian and transitional regimes of the Arab World with a focus on political parties, political participation and multiparty governance. Recently, she has also worked on women political empowerment, particularly across the different types of regime. She is the author of Tunisia and Egypt after the Arab Spring: Party Politics in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule and coeditor of the Routledge Handbook on Political Parties in the Middle East and North Africa. Her latest works have appeared in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Politics and Religion, Middle East Law and Governance and in the Italian Political Science Review.

Kusumika Ghosh is a Post doctoral fellow at the School of Law and Government in Dublin City University. She researches  feminist activism and citizenship in the Global South with a focus on India. Kusumika has a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Studies with the Institute Gold Medal from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India.

She has published a volume of the Peace Studies Series at the North Eastern Social Research Centre titled Landscape of Conflicts and Peace in the Northeast: the role of Religion; and in 2021, co-edited Women and Peacebuilding: Perspectives from the Field. She has presented her PhD research in the IPSA World Political Science Congress, the EISA Pan-European Conference and is heading to the BASAS Annual Conference in 2024. Currently, Kusumika is editing a special issue on Anti-Feminist trends in Global Politics for Politikon. 

Email: kusumika.ghosh2@mail.dcu.ie

DCU profile

Wieczorek is a Polish-origin artist currently living and working in  Ireland.

Her practice evolves between film and photography while moving between constructed documentary and documented fiction.

She graduated from the Strzeminski Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied intaglio printing techniques and photography; and from The National Film School in Lodz, where she studied photography and cinematography. In 2022, she graduated from Le Fresnoy – Studio national.

Her artistic and filmic work has been showcased and awarded internationally, in art institutions and film festivals (Art Basel Miami, US - The Finnish Museum of Photography, FI - Gérardmer Int FF FR - New Horizons Int FF - among others).

In 2023, she was awarded with the Government of Ireland / Irish Research Council Postgraduate Award (2023) which supports her artistic research. Her PhD research and artistic practice focus on representation of women’s reproductive rights in arts and medical humanities.

E-mail: Agata Wieczorek

Tel: +353 87 48 52 116

Research Areas: reproductive rights, abortion, childbirth, infanticide, gender, sexuality studies, femininity, womahood, visual arts, film

Pepe Sánchez-Molero (they/them) is a spatial/urban researcher and designer born and raised in the Mediterranean coast of Spain. They collaborate internationally with grass-root associations, design studios, museums and universities – in the fields of spatial design, curatorial work and activism. 

After graduating with a M.Sc. in Architecture in Germany and working in urbanism and exhibition design, Pepe is currently pursuing a PhD by artefact  at DCU. The research focuses on spatial productions by trans and queer adults with migration backgrounds. Pepe’s PhD produces artefacts in the form of a co-curated event series in Cologne (Germany) and Dublin. Pepe’s overall research interests are based on the production and accessibility of communal and community-based places and the 'queering' of space. 

Pepe is part of the chore organising team of “qswg” (queer space working group), which hosts events and talks on the topic of queer architectural and spatial productions, intersecting with history, education, home-making, health, migration, etc.

Research Areas: queer space, queer geographies, spatial and urban studies, performativity, Ballroom, curatorship, intersectionality

E-mail: jose.sanchezmolero7@mail.dcu.ie 

Róisín O’Connor is a postgraduate research student at Dublin City University whose work focuses on young people’s experiences of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE). They have worked in the area of RSE since the age of 18, including contributing to the development of the Junior Cycle SPHE curriculum with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). Their academic background is in politics, economics and law, with a particular interest in gender, consent, and young people’s rights. 

Karolin Rippich is a PhD researcher within the project “Children’s Online Safety and the Protection of LGBTQ+ Groups” at Dublin City University’s (DCU) Anti-Bullying Centre and Law & Tech Research Cluster. Her work examines the influence of anti-gender politics on EU digital policy and the resulting effects on (queer) children’s digital rights. Before joining DCU, Karolin gained professional experience in data protection, IT and cybersecurity governance roles. She has a background in Intelligence, Security and Strategic Studies and currently serves as Communications Coordinator with the Digital Constitutionalism Network.

Anna Sonnleitner is a PhD candidate and media professional with a strong interdisciplinary background in literature, cultural studies, and communications. Passionate about bridging academic insight with real-world audiences, she has experience in content management, translation, and project coordination across digital and cultural sectors. She enjoys crafting meaningful narratives, building connections across fields, and contributing to research that resonates beyond the academy. 

Dr Asma Yaqoob received her MSc in Practising Sustainable Development from Royal Holloway University of London in 2006. From 2002 to 2017, she worked as a researcher and published nationally and internationally on issues of regional water politics, from the perspective of transboundary basin issues. For her PhD, she is researching on feminist political ecology of 2022 floods in Pakistan to analyse women vulnerabilities from the perspective of intersecting identities, patriarchy and unjust urban governance in everyday lives. She has lately developed hwe interest in gendered bodies as infrastructure and their grassroot activism to reject uneven urbanism as a form of slow violence. 

Benjamin Foley is a PhD student in DCU's School of Communications. With a background in internet studies and transgender online communities, he is now researching digital sexual literacy for LGBTQ+ youth in Ireland. He is also a member of PATHI, the Professional Association for Transgender Healthcare in Ireland, and provides LGBTQ+ awareness training with Certified Proud.

Nhung Dinh is a doctoral research fellow at the School of Communications, Dublin City University, Ireland. Her research focuses on digital feminism, with a focus on Vietnam since the #MeToo movement. She has extensive experience working with gender-based violence survivors across Vietnam within NGO programs, empowering them to achieve independent socio-economic futures through psychological interventions and vocational education.

Nhung holds a master’s degree in Communication Studies from the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium (2017), and a master’s degree in Linguistics from Vietnam National University, Hanoi (2012). She has presented her work at several academic conferences, including the LSE Media Futures Conference in 2023 and the AMIC 28th Annual Conference in 2021.

Research Areas: digital feminism, decolonial feminism, online misogyny, gender-based violence

Email: nhung.dinh2@dcu.ie 

Deniz Celikoglu is a PhD candidate at DCU Anti-Bullying Centre. She is a researcher on the PARTICIPATE project, a Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral network that brings together 10 PhD candidates and leading experts to study cyberbullying. She completed her BSc in Sociology at Middle East Technical University (2019) and received her MA degree in Sociology in European Context at Charles University Prague (2022), where she conducted qualitative research on the contested agency of battered women who killed their batterers in Turkey.  Her doctoral research examines how parents and young men experience and respond to male supremacy online, and how these responses are shaped by affective attachments to cultural norms around gender and security, with particular attention to the role of platform logics in the mainstreaming of these ideologies. 

Research Areas: Digital media and platform studies, influencer culture, online misogyny and the manosphere, algorithmic visibility, gender and digital culture

Email address: deniz.celikoglu@dcu.ie

Nithya Kothenmaril is a doctoral candidate at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland. Her research focuses on the experiences of the elected Dalit women representatives in the local self-government institutions in Kerala, India. She has extensive experience working with women engaging in community-level interventions like ASHA, Kudumbhashree, Anganwadi, etc.

She has a Master of Philosophy degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai (India). She holds a Master’s degree in social work from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam (India) and a Bachelor's degree in mathematics from Calicut University, Kerala (India). She worked as a research officer with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India, before her M.Phil. degree. Her research interests are caste, gender, and political participation in India. Currently, she has a Post-Graduate Research Scholarship within the School of Law and Government, funded by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dublin City University. 

E-mail: nithya.kothenmaril2@mail.dcu.ie

Maria Clara Menezes is a PhD candidate within the DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities.

Orlaith Hickey is a PhD candidate within the DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities.

Alice Maher is a PhD candidate within the DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities.

Anna Iñigo is a pre-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media at the Universitat de Barcelona. She is a member of the Research Centre on Information, Communication and Culture (CRICC-UB) and of KALEIDOSCOPE, the Observatory on Sexualities, Youth and Media. She has been a visiting researcher at Dublin City University’s Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society (FUJO) and at the Università degli Studi di Padova, where she collaborated on the research project Digital Practices, Gender, and Intimacy in Teens’ Everyday Life. Her research focuses on feminist and LGBTIQ+ media studies, particularly on how young people perceive and engage with the manosphere and online misogyny.

Rituparna Banerjee is a postdoctoral researcher at the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Trusted Internet and Community. Her research interests include gender, power, and political communication through visual and non-verbal media. She earned her PhD from the School of Communications at Dublin City University in 2025. Her doctoral research investigated how women politicians in West Bengal, India, manage digital hypervisibility in a highly polarised and politically charged public sphere, drawing on interviews and culturally grounded visual analysis. At NUS, she studies digital resilience with a focus on technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) and deepfakes, bringing together media studies, gender studies, and policy. She is currently developing a project on generative AI political imagery and how algorithmic systems may reproduce patriarchal visual norms, as well as how they might be used to challenge them in electoral politics. Her work has been published in leading peer-reviewed outlets and academic publishers, including Convergence, PS: Political Science & Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, and De Gruyter.

Dr David Carroll has worked in the arenas of social justice & human rights for over 30 years. In this time, he has worked extensively with LGBTQ populations, migrants, and victims of human trafficking. David was a key player in Ireland’s same-sex marriage referendum campaign in 2016, which resulted in the country becoming the first to usher in gay marriage by popular vote. His IRC funded PhD explored the special relationship which can exist between LGBTQ communities & popular music, and argued that as a decade, the 1980s offered multiple examples of this. He currently holds the position of Anti-Racism Project Coordinator with The Irish Congress of Trade Unions. 

Maria Alvarino Piqueras is an Associate Member of the DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities.

Rassa Ghaffari is an Associate Member of the DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities.

Jean Philippe Imbert is an Associate Member of the DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities.

Dr Niamh Gaynor is an Associate Member of the DCU Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities