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Biography

I have been an academic for almost twenty years, starting my lecturing career at Dublin City University, NUI Maynooth and the Irish School of Ecumenics (part of Trinity College Dublin). Re-locating to the South East, I have been at Waterford Institute of Technology since 2001 as Lecturer in International Relations and Politics.

I have lectured in France (Reims Management School), Spain (Universidad Loyola Andalucia) and been a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University in Washington DC.

I have contributed to a succession of national and international political debates through public fora, on radio and through newspaper articles. I served more than a decade as External Examiner for the Public Relations Institute of Ireland.

My core responsibilities are teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students across a range of programmes, as well as co-developing and delivering strategic modules such as the Graduate Seminar Series and International Study Programme to Brussels & Leuven for the School of Business.

My teaching philosophy is to try to cultivate a classroom ethic of curiosity and courtesy.

I deliver modules across a range of programmes at WIT at both under and graduate levels. My core undergraduate teaching concern International Politics and Economics, with modules on Introductory European Union issues, Ireland and the European Union, International Political Economy and International Institutions. I also deliver introductory International Business modules.

At graduate level, I have co-devised and deliver a number of innovative modules such as the Graduate Seminar Series, which runs across all taught Masters' programmes and involves the integration of high calibre external practitioners from the worlds of business, politics, academia, voluntary organisations and the media. Students are afforded the opportunity to engage with and question key leaders and change-makers to test their theories in an interdisciplinary manner.

For the last decade, I have been co-leader of the Graduate Business International Study Programme flagship module which annually brings cross-disciplinary groups to reside at the Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe. The Masters' students prepare and deliver an integrated international business proposal and defend their strategic choices in a challenging and competitive arena. The programme incorporates visits to the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of Ministers as well as the Irish Permanent Representation and Embassy to Belgium. By engaging with Irish business representatives from such bodies as the IFA and IBEC, students experience the forces shaping the European policymaking arena and the dynamics affecting Irish business and society.

Other work at graduate level include the delivery of the International Political Environment module to the Masters in Business Internationalisation programme and the supervision of masters' students' dissertations.

Member of European Commission Team Europe panel of expert communicators. 

Regular contributor to radio and media on wide range of EU and international politics.

Liaise with EU Direct & Waterford Libraries as Chair of the judging panel for South East EU Soapbox competitions.

Deliver public seminars of EU and international affairs in libraries across the South East on regular basis.