Academic biography

Dr Leanne Coll is an Assistant Professor in the School of Policy & Practice, Institute of Education (IoE) at Dublin City University, where she is one of the staff leads on the Graduate Diploma in Social, Personal, Health Education and Relationships & Sexuality Education (GDip SPHE/RSE). The GDip SPHE/RSE is the first programme of its kind in Ireland, providing specialist professional learning for in-service post-primary teachers. She has also contributed to the design and delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education programmes and professional practice initiatives across the IoE, with a focus on innovative, partnership focused and evidence-informed curriculum design.

Dr Coll completed her PhD in Education at the University of Limerick (2016), funded by a prestigious Irish Research Council Post-Graduate Scholarship, where her research explored participatory approaches with young people to foster meaningful educational change in the area of sexuality education. She also holds a BSc in Physical Education & Mathematics (1st Class Hons, University of Limerick) and a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching & Learning (Deakin University, 2017).

Dr Coll’s research with young people and educators focuses on issues of gender, sexuality, social justice and education. She has a particular expertise in co-productive, creative, and action orientated methodological approaches. She has led and contributed to successful competitive national and international research funding (over €250,000), including Principal Investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage project focused on transforming sexuality education with young people and projects with the Australian Institute of Sport focused on educational responses to gender-based violence in/through elite sport. She has published her work in Q1 journal articles, co-authored books, edited collections, and has also produced reports and various multimedia outputs designed to have direct impact on the educators, young people, and communities she works with. Her work has directly informed policy, curriculum, and professional learning programmes in sexuality education in Ireland, Wales, and Australia.

Dr Coll is active in providing research leadership and supporting capacity building initiatives for HDR and ECRs in her field, serving as Co-Convenor of the Gender & Sexualities SIG for the Educational Studies Association of Ireland and on the editorial board of Q1 journal Curriculum Studies in Health & Physical Education. She supervises higher degree