School of Law and Government (EDI) Committee

Dr Valesca Lima is an Assistant Professor at DCU School of Law and Government, specialising in governance, housing policy, political participation, and social movement studies. 

She is currently the co-chair of the School’s IDE committee and the School Athena Swan chair. She is an advocate for equity in research and education, actively promoting the interests of academics on precarious contracts and gender equality in higher education. 

Her commitment to sustainable careers began in 2018 as President of the Maynooth Research Staff Association (MURA) and continued as co-founder and Vice President of the Irish Research Staff Association (IrishRSA). 

From 2021 to 2023, she served as co-Director of the charity Women in Research (WIRI), where her mandate focused on creating a more diverse and inclusive environment within academia, particularly through the development of a sustainable careers framework, increased representation of women and under-represented groups, and addressing EDI issues.
 

Dr Beatrice Monciunskaite is an Assistant Professor at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. 

Dr Monciunskaite's teaching and scholarly interests include comparative constitutional law, European Union law and democratic theory.

Dr Monciunskaite's PhD research was funded by the Irish Research Council and investigated the status of liberal constitutional democracy in Lithuania and Latvia in light of the current rule of law crisis in Europe. 

She is also a Fulbright alumna, receiving the 2021/22 Fulbright Student Award. She is currently working on a monograph detailing the trajectory of liberal constitutional democracy in the Baltic States while continuing to research in the area of the rule of law crisis and European Union accession law and policy.

Dr Karen Devine is a lecturer in the School of Law and Government, teaching Irish Foreign Policy, European Union (EU) Policy and Politics, and Gender, Race, Class and Politics. 

Her research interests include Irish neutrality, EU militarism, and the role of identity in public opinion on foreign policy in Ireland, the USA and across Europe.  

Her early work in the EDI space included Reading for the Blind in UCD, and several years as an Educational Support Worker for students in University of Dublin, Trinity College. After a Fulbright Scholar visit to Columbia University in the City of New York and the benefit of seeing how race, gender and class inequities were approached through local community organised workshops and meetings, Dr Devine set up a gender-based support group for PhD students in Dublin City University (DCU) in 2014 shortly after her return. 

Three years later, in collaboration with colleagues, Dr Devine worked to bring in Smart Consent workshops for first year students in DCU and co-authored the report on the workshops that showed a significant change in participants’ confidence in negotiating sexual consent, especially for females. 

She has contributed research-based equity-driven submissions to the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality in 2020, on Ireland's Third National Action Plan on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in 2018 (including participation in the first Consultative Workshop), and to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as part of its review of Ireland’s foreign policy and external relations in 2014. 

Dr Devine twice presented as a candidate for Seand Éireann’s University Panel based on an equality agenda.  Dr Devine also helps to drive support for neurodivergent (Autism, ADHD and AuDHD) equity, diversity and inclusion in educational settings. 
 

Dr Alice Brawley-Chesworth is a postdoctoral researcher at DCU working with the School of Law and Government on climate and environmental policy and politics. 

She is currently splitting her time between the Climate + Biodiversity + Water Co-Centre (https://www.climatecocentre.org/) and the Horizon Europe RETOOL project (https://www.retoolproject.eu/). 

Prior to moving into academia, Alice worked in the municipal water sector in the US as a chemist, engineer, water resources advisor, and policy analyst. As a policy analyst she led employee support efforts with a focus on inclusion and employee voice. 

Her research interests include policy and infrastructure decision processes, climate mitigation and adaptation, social and technological innovation, disciplinary cultures, and
environmental justice.
 

Dr Andrew Forde is Assistant Professor of European Human Rights Law. 

In 2023 he was appointed by the President of Ireland as a Commissioner on the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) and currently sits on the Policy and Research Committee of IHREC. 

Previously, he worked for more than 10 years with the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe as Human Rights Advisor to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and Political Advisor with a particular focus on human rights in conflict-affected regions. 

He also served for six years as a senior official in the Irish civil service with responsibility for sustainable rural development and social enterprise policy. 

Dr Walt Kilroy is Co-Director of the DCU Conflict Institute at Dublin City University (DCU). He is also Assistant Professor at DCU’s School of Law and Government. 

His research and teaching focus on conflict, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and development. His research includes reintegration programmes for ex-combatants after the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. He also works on the protection of civilians by peacekeepers in South Sudan and Mali. 

He led the School of Law and Government’s application for its first Athena Swan Bronze Award (2024), and was the School’s EDI Convenor (2024-25). He has served on the government’s Oversight Group for the National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security, and has been involved in human rights issues over the years. 

He previously worked in peace and humanitarian advocacy for development agency Trócaire. Before that he worked as a journalist, and was Deputy Foreign Editor at RTE.
 

Dr Ross Carroll is an Assistant Professor in DCU’s School of Law of Government, which he joined in 2023 having spent most of his earlier career in the US and UK.

His research and teaching focuses on the history of political thought, public policy, and political ideologies. Much of his research has had an EDI focus, including a study recovering the hidden intellectual labour of the wives and intimate partners of canonical political thinkers, and another on women’s contributions to the campaign to abolish slavery in Britain. 

He previously served on the EDI committee of the Politics department of the University of Exeter.