Visiting Professors to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Professor Moira Doherty

Deputy Secretary, Department for Communities, Northern Ireland Civil Service

Moira is the Deputy Secretary of the Engaged Communities Group within the Department for Communities. Moira and her team deliver a diverse portfolio of policies and programmes aimed at supporting and enriching communities.  The group’s functions include: arts, culture and languages; sport; tackling deprivation through Neighbourhood Renewal; heritage, the Public Records Office for Northern Ireland; and strategic partner with the voluntary and community sector.

Moira joined the Civil Service in 1999, and has been in her current role since 2019. Prior to that she worked in a range of policy, project delivery and operational roles across a number of Executive departments. Moira is also the Trustee of a local charity, The Turnaround Project, which helps to turn around the futures of people serving sentences in prison or in the community.

Professor Katrina Godfrey

Permanent Secretary, Department for Infrastructure, Northern Ireland Civil Service

Katrina is the Permanent Secretary in the Department for Infrastructure, a department which carries both policy and operational responsibilities for most aspects of strategic infrastructure in Northern  Ireland, including the road, rail, public transport, drainage, inland waterways and  water and sewerage networks. She joined DfI in 2018 following 2 years leading work on a new Programme for Government at the centre of government here and 12 years at senior levels in the Department of Education.

The Department for Infrastructure leads work on transport  policy, planning policy, active and sustainable  travel and road safety policy; oversees the delivery of water and sewerage and public transport services by its arm’s length bodies; acts as planning  authority for regionally significant planning decisions; delivers driver  and vehicle testing and enforcement services; leads on river and sea defence maintenance, flood risk assessment and the construction of flood alleviation schemes; and fulfils the responsibilities of both a strategic and local roads authority. Along with its counterpart department in the south, it also oversees the work of one of the north-south  bodies, Waterways Ireland.

Katrina has developed and led policy development courses in the NI Civil Service and has also participated in a wide range  of national  and international policy  groups, mostly in the field of education.  She has worked with both the British Council and the OECD to develop the sharing of learning and best practice in an international context and as part of an OECD expert team carrying out a review of aspects of the education system in Lithuania.

Professor Anthony Harbison

Director of Access to Justice and Director of the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunal Service, Department of Justice

Expertise

A professional Accountant and from Global President of ACCA and Chair of the CCAB he is a leading advocate for the development of ethics standards in the finance and accounting as well as the combatting of organised crime.  He has also held a number of senior policy roles within Whitehall and the NI Civil Service.

Role at Ulster University

Prof. Harbinson contributes to the dissemination of various research and professional education related activities in the Business School.  He has supported the dissemination of research in the area of gender equality issues and is a module coordinator on the university’s MPA course. Prof Harbinson has also organised and hosted several events for students and staff in Stormont.

Professor Fiona McCandless

Deputy Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Northern Ireland Civil Service

Fiona has over thirty years’ experience working in the public sector with over 10 years contributing to the overall strategic direction of the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) as a member of the Senior Civil Service Group.  She was appointed Deputy Secretary in 2013 and has since worked in three Departments.

In 2018 Fiona joined the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and is currently responsible for the overall leadership, management and delivery of the Department’s Rural Affairs Division, Forest Service including plant health and the extensive DAERA Estate. Recently she has also taken on responsibility for Brexit Operational Readiness Division.

Prior to joining DAERA Fiona held the role of Chief Planner for Department of Infrastructure providing advice and guidance to the Minister on all professional planning related matters. She also led delivery of the programme to transfer planning powers to local government.

In October 2020 Fiona was appointed Gender Champion for the NICS. In this key leadership role Fiona works across all Departments influencing and ensuring a diverse and inclusive culture. She also has a keen interest in supporting staff in terms of mental health, wellbeing and resilience.

Fiona is a graduate of Queen’s University Belfast and worked in a number of local authorities in the South of Ireland before joining the NICS in 1998 including Dublin, Donegal and Roscommon.

She is a former Chair of the Royal Town Planning Institute (Northern Ireland).

Fiona is married and has two children.

Professor Michael Tierney

Barrister

Michael is a graduate of the University of Ulster and is member of the Bar of Northern Ireland who specialises in criminal defence advocacy but has a broad practice including civil litigation, employment and public law (through Judicial Review). He has appeared as Counsel for the Coroner in several inquests including high profile ‘legacy’ cases.

Before joining the Bar Michael worked in what is now the Department of Justice as a member of the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunal Service and consequently has a unique perspective of how the legal system in Northern Ireland operates. He remains passionate about his role which he sees as advocating for those that cannot speak for themselves.

Professor Graham Dawson

Visiting Professor - INCORE

Graham Dawson joined Ulster University as Visiting Professor associated with INCORE (International Conflict Research Institute) in 2024. Previously he was the University of Brighton's Professor of Historical Cultural Studies (2012-22) and co-founder and Director of the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories (2008-21). He has a PhD from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, where he was a member of the Popular Memory Group (1979-1986).

Graham's research in the field of interdisciplinary Cultural Studies draws on cultural theory, history, literature, cultural geography and psychoanalysis to investigate memories and narratives of lived experience and identity in contexts of war and conflict. Since 1995 his main focus has been on practices of memory, conflict legacies and cultural politics in the Northern Irish Troubles and peace process, encompassing both the North of Ireland and Britain.

His work is informed by, and contributes to, transnational debates concerning the cultural dimensions of 'dealing with the past' within conflict transformation processes. His particular interest lies in the temporal and emotional dynamics of personal memories and subjectivities negotiated in oral histories, life stories and other forms, considered in relation to geographical locations, public narratives, hegemonic representations, marginalised histories and historical justice. He has a particular interest in local community-based memorywork and a close relationship with the Dúchas Oral History Archive at Falls Community Council, West Belfast.

Graham is author of two ground-breaking monographs, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (1994) and Making Peace with the Past? Memory, Trauma and the Irish Troubles (2007); as well as numerous journal articles, book chapters and other publications.

He has co-edited four innovative books including The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration (2000) and The Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain: Impacts, Engagements, Legacies and Memories (2017). He was Co-I on a major AHRC-funded oral history project, Conflict, Migration and Memory: Northern Irish Migrants and the Troubles in Great Britain (2018-22), with work towards publications continuing.

His next monograph, Afterlives of the Troubles: Life Stories and the Culture of Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland, will be published by Manchester UP. He is a member of the Brighton Memory Studies Collective whose book, Unsettling Memories of Violence: Complex Temporalities in ‘Post-conflict’ Societies, is under contract; and on the editorial committee of an online publication emerging from the AHRC network, 'Sensing Conflict: Towards an Sociosomatic History of Northern Ireland's Troubles' (2022-23).

Roberta Bacic

Visiting Professor, Incore / CAIN

Roberta Bacic is a Chilean human rights advocate and researcher residing in Northern Ireland. In 2025, she joined Ulster University as a Visiting Professor associated with the International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE), building on a 15-year collaborative history with the university. Bacic is best known as the founder and curator of Conflict Textiles [linked needed http://www.conflicttextiles.com], established in 2007, which features a significant collection of international textiles that address issues of conflict and human rights abuses.

At the core of Conflict Textiles is a collection of approximately 400 textiles, primarily, arpilleras—appliqué textiles crafted from scraps of material that originated in Chile. These pieces poignantly reflect the makers' responses to conflict, often conveying personal narratives. The initiative has inspired similar projects in countries including Catalonia, Colombia, Peru, Zimbabwe and the Basque Country. Bacic has curated over 200 exhibitions of arpilleras and related textile narratives in museums, universities, art galleries, embassies, and community spaces worldwide, including prominent venues such as the V&A, Tate Modern, Ulster Museum, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Chile), Museum Frauenkultur Regional (Bavaria Germany) and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. Her curatorial focus has expanded from Chilean arpilleras from the Pinochet dictatorship to include quilts and other textile expressions of loss, resistance, and healing.

In 2020 a permanent rotating exhibition at the Derry-Londonderry Library of Ulster University, supported by the Hume O'Neill Chair was established. This collaboration has led to additional galleries opening at the Belfast Campus (October 2023) and Coleraine Campus (April 2024). The digital collection of Conflict Textiles is hosted by CAIN [linked needed http://www.conflicttextiles.com] at Ulster University.

Before moving to Northern Ireland, Bacic served as the Programme and Development Officer for War Resisters' International in London from 1998 to 2004. She holds a Profesor de Estado en Inglés degree with the highest distinction from Universidad de Chile and lectured in Philosophy and Education at Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia for eight years, until her dismissal for political reasons during the Pinochet Military Regime. Bacic also taught English at the secondary school level and worked as a researcher for the second Chilean Truth Commission, investigating the detention, execution, and disappearance of individuals by Chile's armed forces. Additionally, she lectured and conducted research on human rights at Universidad Católica de Temuco.

Denis McMahon

Visiting Professor

Denis is a senior public service leader and data-led analyst with over 30 years’ experience, including 25 years at the most senior levels of government and 9 years as a Permanent Secretary. He has operated at the centre of government, advising Ministers from across the political spectrum, including First Ministers, and leading departments during a four-year period without Ministers.

As the first Permanent Secretary of the Executive Office, he chaired cross-party forums of MLAs during a period of institutional suspension and helped shape the development of a Programme for Government. He also led development of the 2011–2014 Programme. As Head of the Policy Profession for six years, he worked across UK and Irish administrations to design and implement major reforms spanning wellbeing, health, social policy, climate and sustainability, and digital transformation.

Denis has a strong track record in organisational turnaround and system leadership, managing large, complex organisations of up to 6,500 staff and budgets of up to £1.6 billion. He has delivered measurable improvements in organisational performance, staff morale and culture, and has delivered major capital programmes across Health (£200m p.a.), Education (£200m p.a.) and Infrastructure (£900m).

He has led cross-government responses to major emergencies as Gold Commander, working closely with counterparts across the UK and Ireland. These included responses to 9/11, EU exit-related food supply challenges, the Covid-19 pandemic, severe flooding events, and the Ukrainian refugee crisis. He was also the first Northern Ireland witness to the UK Covid Inquiry.

Originally trained as a statistician, Denis now applies a data-led approach to analysing public service policy and performance across the UK, Ireland and internationally. He holds a Batchelors degree and PhD in Psychology from Queen’s University Belfast and is currently completing a degree in Mathematics and Physics. He is a graduate of the Major Projects Leadership Academy at Oxford and was a UK Fulbright-Humphrey Fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. He also serves on the board of the mental health charity Threshold.

Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin

Visiting Professor

Conchúr Ó Giollagáin is a Dubliner who lived for many years in various Irish-speaking Gaeltacht regions prior to coming to the University of the Highland and Islands in 2014. He now lives in Inverness. He is the UHI Gaelic Research Professor and the director of the UHI Language Sciences Institute. He is also the academic director of Soillse, a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research project, based at Scotland’s national college for Gàidhlig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, on the Isle of Skye. In 2015 he was appointed as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Conchúr is a prominent scholar in language planning and minority language culture and sociology. He has written extensively on issues concerning the sustainability of minority cultures, especially the Gaeltacht communities in Ireland and Scotland.

Conchúr previously lectured in the School of Political Science and Sociology in the National University of Ireland Galway on the sociology of language. His teaching and research interests include language planning, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and Gaeltacht biography. Previously, he was the Head of the Language Planning Unit in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge (Ireland’s Irish-medium college in NUI Galway), where he devised and led Ireland’s first MA programme in Language Planning. He also contributed to the development of the Acadamh’s MA in Language Sciences.

He published in 2020 with colleagues the most comprehensive sociolinguistic survey of the societal extent of Gaelic speakers’ use of the language in the remaining vernacular communities in Scotland: The Gaelic Crisis in the Vernacular Community: A Comprehensive Sociolinguistic Survey of Scottish Gaelic (Aberdeen University Press; Research Digest). He co-authored the government-commissioned Gaeltacht survey Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht (2007). The update of the study Nuashonrú ar an Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht: 2006–2011 (An Update of the Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht) was published in 2015).

Along with Tamás Péterváry, Brian Ó Curnáin and Jerome Sheahan he published the first major study of bilingual acquisition in Ireland, Iniúchadh ar an gCumas Dátheangach: An sealbhú teanga i measc ghlúin óg na Gaeltachta / Assessment of Bilingual Competence: Language acquisition among people in the Gaeltacht. He co-edited two ground-breaking books, Beartas Úr na nGael: Dálaí na Gaeilge san Iar-Nua-Aoiseachas [A New Deal for the Gaels: Irish in Postmodernity] (2016) and An Chonair Chaoch: an Mionteangachas sa Dátheangachas (2012) examining the minority language condition from the perspective of those whose primary identity is the minority culture.

With Micil Chonraí, he published Stairsheanchas Mhicil Chonraí: Ón Máimín go Ráth Chairn. (Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1999), which was subsequently translated by the late Jean Le Dû, and published as Une Vie Irlandaise. Du Connemara à Ráth Chairn: Histoire de la Vie de Micil Chonraí (Terre de Brume 2010).

Dr Paul Mullan

Visiting Professor

Dr Paul Mullan is Director of the National Lottery Heritage Fund (Northern Ireland). He is a graduate of Queens University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, and Ulster University, and completed his doctoral research at Ulster in 2021 with a thesis on how the past is remembered in a divided society.

He has sat on a variety of Ministerial Advisory Groups including the recent Culture, Arts and Heritage Taskforce. He is also a member of the Irish Government’s Expert Advisory Committee on the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. He chairs the Decade of Centenaries Roundtable which supports civic and community organisations to navigate how the past is remembered.

In addition to his Visiting Professorship of Heritage and Museum Studies at Ulster, Dr Mullan is an Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast.

Julie Andrews

Visiting Professor, School of Arts and Humanities

Julie Andrews has been Director of the Linen Hall since 2013.  She is the first female ever to be in charge of the Linen Hall. Julie gained an LLB (Hons) in law from Queen’s University, Belfast and then did two sets of professional accountancy examinations. After working for many years in the private sector, including in property development and telecommunications, Julie started working in the charitable/arts and cultural sector in 2008 when she became General Manager of the Spectrum Centre. Julie currently sits on the Board of Ormeau Business Park,  Eastside Tourism and the John Hewitt Society.

Previously Julie sat on the Board of the Arts Council for NI and the Ulster Scots Agency. She was Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee for both of these organisations. . Julie was Deputy Chair of NI Museums’ Council and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Professor Leigh Landy

Director of (MTI) research centre, De Montfort University

Prof. Landy is the Director of the Music, Technology and Innovation - Institute for Sonic Creativity (MTI²) research centre at De Montfort University.

Prof. Landy is a leading figure in the research of electroacoustic music, experimental musics, and cross-arts practices. He is Editor of the journal Organised Sound (Cambridge) is a founder-member of the Electroacoustic Music Studies network, in addition to the authoring of eight books, numerous concert works, and leading on the EARS/EARS2 (Electroacoustic  Resource Sites) projects.

Kendall Phillips

Visiting Professor

Kendall R. Phillips is an award-winning writer, academic, and media professional whose work engages popular media, public memory, and democratic culture. He has published more than a dozen books and numerous academic articles. His 2012 book, Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter and the Modern Horror Film was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in Nonfiction and his debut novel, No One Can Save Us, won the 2025 Firebrand Book Award for top horror novel.

Phillips holds a Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University and has served in numerous administrative roles, including department chair, associate dean, and director for the Lender Center for Social Justice. He is a Fellow of the Rhetoric Society of America and served as the organization’s president between 2014 and 2016. He has held visiting appointments at York St. John University, Massey University (NZ), and Shanghai University.

In the media, Phillips was host of the Telly Award winning television series, “Classic Movie Night,” for WCNY and of WAER’s “Pop Life” podcast, which was distributed by National Public Radio. He has also offered commentary to numerous news venues around the world.

Professor Paul Allain

Visiting Professor

Paul Allain is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, where he is currently Director of Research and Innovation for the School of Arts and Architecture. He was the Dean of the Graduate and Researcher College from 2016-22, and before that, held several research and impact leadership roles at Kent.

He has published extensively on actor training and contemporary performance processes as both author and editor in books, CDRoms, DVDs, articles and online, with a particular focus on contemporary Polish theatre, Suzuki Tadashi, digital training and practice research, an area in which he is a recognized expert. He is also a specialist on Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski and has been awarded the Witkacy prize as well as a medal by the Polish government, recognising his services to Polish culture overseas.

In the UK, he was a REF panellist in 2014 and 2021 and part of the PCE Pilot in 2025. He acted as Research Mentor for the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, UK from 2014-18. He has also been a research reviewer and consultant internationally, and has led training workshops around the world, across Europe and as part of particular programmes in Poland, Greece and Italy. Most recently, he has taught in India, Singapore and China, where he has been helping several institutions develop their practice research and academic collaborations and publications

Professor Riann Coulter

Curator / Manager, FE McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge

Riann Coulter is a curator and art historian whose research focuses on identity in Irish and Northern Irish art.  A graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA) and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (MA, PhD), she has taught art history at TCD and been awarded post-doctoral fellowships by the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art and the Irish Research Council.

Dr Coulter has curated and co-curated over 40 exhibitions for institutions including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ulster Museum, National Gallery of Ireland and the F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Co. Down where she has been curator since 2009. Key projects include exhibitions and publications on Mainie Jellett, Gerard Dillion, Nano Reid, Colin Middleton, Deborah Brown, Gerda Frömel, David Crone, Susan MacWilliam, Sharon Kelly and Amanda Coogan.

She is co-editor with Roisin Kennedy of Censoring Art: Silencing the Art Work, (IB Taurus, 2018) and has contributed to numerous publications including The Art and Architecture of Ireland (Dublin, 2014), Familiar but Unknown: Irish Women Artists (Dublin 2010), Sources in Irish Art 2 (Cork, 2021) and Brightening Glances: Irish Art since 1900 (Dublin, 2022). Dr Coulter is the Vice Chair of the Irish Museums Association and a member of the International Council of Museums. She has served on the Boards of National Museums NI,  the Northern Ireland Museums Council and the Strategic Committee of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris.

Deepa Mann-Kler

Visiting Professor of Inclusive Innovation

Deepa Mann-Kler is CEO Neon; StoryFutures Inclusion Executive Producer for Costar and CDT AI the UK government funded £75.6 million research network for creative technology; she is a member of the UK Government Creative Industries Council and Director of the Belfast XR Festival.

A multi award-winning artist and Visiting Professor of Inclusive Innovation at Ulster University, she also serves on the Euromersive Board, IDA XR Studio and is a BAFTA Connect member.

Her globally recognised XR work, The Baby Factory Is Closed is in competition at SxSW26, The Metaverse & Me, Discover ME, centres identity, justice and community voice in shaping our immersive futures. She drives strategic XR projects that deliver social impact at scale.

A TEDx speaker “Being Human” and thought leader Deepa regularly keynotes on the intersection of storytelling, digital transformation, technical innovation, leadership, inclusion, ethics, bias, data, AI, design and creativity.

Professor Jim Roddis

Emeritus Professor of Sheffield Hallam University

Jim Roddis was made an Emeritus Professor of Design at Sheffield Hallam University on his retirement from full time employment and now works on a part time basis in the Art & Design Research Centre. Prior to his retirement he was the Assistant Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences and responsible for The Materials and Engineering Research Institute (MERI) and The Cultural, Communication and Computing Research Institute (C3RI) These two institutes spanned research, development and knowledge transfer programmes from nano technologies to fine art.

He is a member of the Creative and Performing Arts panel for the New Zealand PBRF (REF) and was a panel member of Sub Panel 34 Art & Design: History, Practice and Theory for the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014. Also in 2014 Jim served as a panel member for the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in Hong Kong (Creative Arts, Performing Arts and Design). Jim has also been a member of the UK RAE sub Panels for Art and Design at the 2001 and 2008 assessments and was deputy chair of the 2008 panel.

Over his career he has contributed to many panels and strategic boards including HEFCEs Special Institution Panel the Regional Development Agencies Design Strategy Board and the AHRC peer review college.

Professor Rory McGloin

Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Connecticut

Rory McGloin, Ph.D. is an award-winning communication professor at the University of Connecticut.

Rory's career in higher education spans 14 years, including engagements with over 10,000 learners to date and 28 peer-reviewed journal publications.

During this time, Rory has curated a wealth of knowledge on how the process of communication impacts every element of our lives.

Rory’s previous research focused on the effects of interactive media environments, with specific interests in online information processing as well as the effects of video games and their associated affordances. Rory’s current work is focused on the use of communication best practices in digital environments as well as organizational training and development centered around the improvement of employees’ communication skills.

Rory is also an entrepreneur who runs his own consulting firm, in which he shares his expertise with organizations seeking to engage in meaningful transitions through the power and value of effective communication.

Mark Carruthers

Visiting Professor, School of Communication and Media

Mark Carruthers is one of Northern Ireland’s best known journalists. He joined the BBC in 1989 and since then he has presented countless radio and television programmes. Since September 2011 he has been BBC NI’s main politics presenter and currently fronts the weekly flagship programmes The View and Sunday Politics. He also presents the BBC’s political podcast Red Lines.

He has reported and presented on location down the years from India, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Belgium and the USA and has been nominated for four Royal Television Society awards for his work.

Mark studied political science at Queen's University Belfast, graduating in 1987. In 1989 he was awarded a Master's degree in Irish politics. In July 2019 he was awarded an honorary doctorate (DLit) by Queen’s for distinction in broadcasting.

Beyond politics, Mark is a passionate advocate of the arts. He served on the Board of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast for almost fourteen years – eight of them as Chairman – and was a leading figure in the successful campaign to rebuild the theatre at a cost of over £18m.

He is co-editor, with Stephen Douds, of Stepping Stones: The Arts in Ulster 1971-2001 which was published by Blackstaff Press in 2001. Alternative Ulsters – Conversations on Identity, a collection of interviews with leading writers, actors, journalists and politicians, was published by Liberties Press in Dublin in 2013.

Mark was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in Northern Ireland in the 2011 New Year Honours List.

Dr Rushen Shi

Visiting Professor, School of Communication & Media

Rushen Shi received her PhD in linguistics from Brown University, USA.  She was awarded a prestigious Canadian postdoc fellowship (the Izaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellowship) and conducted her postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia.

Subsequently, she was an assistant professor in the School of Audiology & Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia.

She is presently a full professor in the Psychology Department and the Institut des Sciences Cognitives at the Université du Québec à Montréal.  She is the director of the Groupe de Recherche sur le Langage (Language Research Group).

The research of her laboratory focuses on child language, especially the acquisition mechanisms and representations in infants and toddlers.

Professor John Anderson

Independent Chair, ENNI (Education Network Northern Ireland) Innovation Forum Non-Executive Director

A qualified teacher, researcher, author and former lecturer at the New University of Ulster Education Centre, John was a national director in the UK Microelectronics Education Programme from 1980 to 1985 as well as a research officer for the UK National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning.

He has been honorary professor of education at Queen’s University, Belfast, an adjunct associate professor in Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, and for ten years was on the faculty of an international education summer school in Boston.

John spent seven years from 1999 - 2006 working with the five former education and library boards through the Classroom 2000 / C2k project as the strategy coordinator for education technology in schools, a further year in the Department of Education’s policy and strategy unit and as an associate for eight years with the Regional Training Unit in Northern Ireland.

He has worked variously in project management, consultancy, evaluation, research and lecturing with the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, the British Council, the European Union’s Schoolnet (EUN), The Teaching Council in the Republic of Ireland and with eight ministries of education across Europe and Scandinavia as well as in the USA, Jordan, South Africa and Japan.

John retired recently from the post of managing inspector after 35 years in the Education and Training Inspectorate in Northern Ireland, with experience in all school sectors, wider educational settings and further and higher education and training organisations as well as in the corporate management and staff development of the inspectorate.

John is now a Council member of the NI Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, the Independent Chair of the Northern Ireland Innovation Forum, which promotes and evaluates innovation in the use of digital technologies in schools, head judge of the NI Schools ICT Excellence Awards, a member of the Education Authority’s Education Information Solutions (EdIS) Programme Board and a non-executive Director of the Controlled Schools Support Council.

Aoife Nolan

Professor of International Human Rights Law and Co-Director of the Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham

Aoife Nolan is Professor of International Human Rights Law and Co-Director of the Human Rights Law Centre at the University of Nottingham. Professor Nolan’s professional experience in human rights and constitutional law straddles the legal, policy, practitioner and academic fields. She is Vice-President of the Council of Europe's European Committee of Social Rights, which she joined in 2017. She has published extensively in the areas of human rights and constitutional law, particularly in relation to children's rights and economic and social rights. She currently leads a major three-year international research project on ‘Advancing Child Rights Strategic Litigation’.

Professor Nolan has acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national organisations and bodies working on human rights issues, including numerous UN Special Procedures, UN treaty bodies, the Council of Europe, multiple NHRIs and NGOs. She has held visiting positions at academic institutions in Europe, Africa, the US and Australia. She is an Academic Expert member at Doughty Street Chambers where she co-leads the Children’s Rights Group.

Her recent work has focused on climate justice and the rights of children and future generations. In January 2021, she was invited to join the advisory board to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on its forthcoming General Comment No.26 on children’s rights and the environment with a special focus on climate change.

Paul Gillen

Partner, Pinset Masons

Paul heads the employment law team in Ireland, both from our Dublin and Belfast offices. Paul is qualified in England & Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and provides cross jurisdiction and comparative law advice across the UK and Ireland. Paul advises clients on contentious and non-contentious matters, including HR support, matters, mergers & acquisitions, restructuring, executive management, TUPE, outsourcing, discrimination law, and a full range of employment litigation.

Before qualifying as a lawyer, Paul gained a B.Sc (Hons) in Psychology and a MA in HR Management and worked for over 10 years in people management roles in a range of sectors, including retail, construction and manufacturing. Paul is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development as well as Visiting Professor to the School of Law at Ulster University. This gives both professional specialist employment law skills along with the strength of "seeing it from the client's perspective" in advising on practical solutions. Paul is a regular employment law speaker for Legal Island, the CIPD, CBI and other organisations.

Sheena Grattan

Visiting Professor, School of Law

Sheena Grattan has almost 40 years’ experience of succession law, trusts, charity law and land law as an academic and a practising barrister, being called to both the Bar of Northern Ireland and to King’s Inns, Dublin.

During her years in academia, Sheena taught a wide range of commercial and property law subjects, with her main teaching interests being Equity, Succession Law and Taxation.  She was a council member of both the Irish Association of Law Teachers (also serving as Treasurer) and the Irish Legal History Society (also serving as Northern Secretary).  She was also a member of the Law Reform Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland, a member of the Council of Legal Education and the SLS (Servicing the Legal System) Committee.

At the Bar Sheena developed a speciality in wills, trusts and estates and charity law with associated tax. Throughout her years of full-time practice, Sheena retained an interest in both teaching and publishing.  She has over 80 publications ranging from articles in peer-reviewed international journals to user friendly guides aimed at lay audiences and including the main succession law and trusts law practitioner texts in Northern Ireland.

With other private client colleagues from the legal and accountancy professions, Sheena was a founding member of the Northern Ireland branch of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) in 2007. She was responsible for the Branch’s acclaimed Education and CPD programme from 2008 until 2018 and served as Chair from 2018 – 2022.  She was instrumental in establishing a specific STEP Diploma programme for Northern Ireland, and delivered and examined the legal components since the inception of the programme in 2009 until 2025.  She is a recipient of the STEP Founder’s Award.

She was on the steering committee and Editorial Board of the Journal of Elder Law Capacity from 2016 to 2024 and is currently co-editor of the Northern Ireland Conveyancing and Land Law Journal.

Sheena is regularly invited to give lectures and CPD sessions to both branches of the legal profession, to the accountancy and tax professions, to the medical profession and to public bodies and to charities and other voluntary organisations. She was one of only two members of the Bar of Northern Ireland invited to join the Chancery Bar Association (England and Wales) as an overseas member.