DICELABS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management in the Department
Aisling Bonner is an Assistant Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management in the Department of Business at the Atlantic Technological University, Donegal. She lectures on a range of undergraduate modules in the areas of Quantitative Methods, Operations Management and Supply Chain Management.
Aisling received her Bachelor of Business (Hons) in Management and a Master of Business by Research from Letterkenny Institute of Technology. Her MBus project concerned social capital dimensions and their influence on operational performance in Irish businesses. Aisling is currently undertaking a PhD in the area of Operations Management at Ulster University Business School. Her current project investigates the impact of precarious employment on operational performance. Before joining ATU as an Assistant Lecturer, Aisling worked in a range of front and back-office roles in the hospitality industry and worked as a project administrator for a number of Erasmus+ funded projects at LYIT.
Bonner, A., Onofrei, G., Humphreys, P., Margey, M. and Cadden, T. (2021) Entrepreneurial versus cooperative social capital: The impact on operational performance. Business Strategy and The Environment, 1-12, https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2844.
Job Titles:
- Learning & Skills Futures, Social Change & Transformation
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer
- Transport and Regional
Amaya Vega is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the School of Business, Atlantic Technological University in Galway City. Amaya was awarded a Ph.D. in Economics from University College Dublin and she also holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and Management degree (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain), MA in Economics degree (University College Dublin) as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning (Atlantic Technological University). Amaya has over 20 years' experience in academia. Prior to her current position, she was a Research Fellow in Economics at University of Galway.
Job Titles:
- Organisational Leadership
Dr. Anne Burke graduated from DCU with a first class honours MSc degree in the Management and Application of Information Technology in Accounting in 1999. Prior to joining academia Anne, a qualified Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA), enjoyed an 11 year career as an accountant in the public sector where her work involved auditing, financial accounting and the implementation of SAP and Agresso ERP systems. Anne joined LYIT in 2001 as a lecturer in the Department of Business Studies. Since joining in 2001, she has acted as Head of Department of the Department of Law and Humanities for 2 years and she is currently senior lecturer in the Department of Business Studies. She pursued and graduated with a PhD around Information Systems Strategic Alignment under the supervision of Dr. Joe McDonagh in Trinity College Dublin.
Job Titles:
- Innovation & Entrepreneurial, Social Change & Transformation, Learning & Skills Futures, Innovation Roadmaps & Processes
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Leading Innovation & Entrepreneurial Futures, Social Change Futures
Dr. Conor McTiernan is a lecturer in the Department of Tourism in ATU Donegal. He completed his PhD in Leeds Beckett University exploring the role of trust in inter-organisational knowledge transfer in Irish festival and event tourism networks. His teaching role includes such subject areas as strategic tourism and hospitality management, food and beverage management, tourism planning, destination development and research methods. Conor has undertaken many academic roles in LYIT including membership of Academic Council and is currently an external examiner in both Athlone Institute of Technology and Institute of Technology Sligo. Conor is currently supervising a number of post graduate dissertation projects. He is a member of the Irish Hospitality Institute (IHI) and the First International Network of Trust (FINT).
McTiernan, C, Musgrave, J and Cooper, C (2021) ‘The role of trust in the transfer of pro-environmental knowledge in small and medium sized tourism enterprises' Journal of Sustainable Tourism.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Learning & Skills Futures, Social Change & Transformation
Deirdre McClay is a lecturer in The School of Business with a background in education, law and accounting. She holds a doctorate in education (2017) and an LLB (1987) from Queen's University Belfast and a PG Diploma in Higher Education Practice (2009) from Ulster University. She also trained with KPMG Dublin as a Chartered Accountant (1991) and completed the Irish Tax Institute professional examinations (1992) before working as a lecturer in both Queen's University Belfast and Letterkenny I.T. In LYIT, she lectures on education, business and law programmes and has extensive experience from level 6 through to level 9 including dissertation supervision on taught and research master's programmes. She is also the programme coordinator for the MA in Learning & Teaching which is offered to lecturers and teachers across education sectors, and she works with and has developed the LYIT Communications Learning Centre (CLC) which offers a suite of student skills development initiatives across disciplines. In her spare time she writes short stories and poems which have been published nationally and internationally.
Deirdre McClay completed her doctorate in 2017 with a dissertation titled ‘Stories from Irish Higher Education Academic Writing Centres'. Her main research interests are in writing pedagogy in higher education and teaching and learning in higher education; these fit within the LYIT School of Business research focus area of Learning & Skills Futures and the Innovation/Change area of Social Change and Transformation. She has presented widely at national and international teaching and learning conferences and successfully applied for nationally funded seminars and a collaborative project under the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. She was the LYIT coordinator for the ATLAS 2016 nationally funded project which explored mapping of five level 9 Teaching and Learning programmes to the ‘Professional Development Framework for All Staff Who Teach in Higher Education'. Since 2015, she has been co-director of the annual week-long Summer Writing Institute for Teachers (SWIFT) at Maynooth University along with Dr. Alison Farrell. Based on the Bay Area Writing Project at Berkeley University, SWIFT is the first programme of its kind in Ireland; it is a community of practice initiative which supports teachers at all educational levels to develop both their own and their learners' writing skills.
Job Titles:
- Futures, Market & Social Science Research, Consumer Profiling & Marketing, Innovation Roadmaps & Processes
Elizabeth McKenzie is a Culinary Arts Lecturer at the Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Department of Tourism, Killybegs. Her research interests include: market-oriented new product development, strategic food marketing, new food product development, seafood development, food product development in SMEs and sensory evaluation. She received her Bachelor of Business and Culinary Arts from Letterkenny Institute of Technology in 2008 and Bachelor of Business Studies (Hons) in Event, Hospitality and Tourism management from Dundalk Institute of Technology in 2010. Her postgraduate qualifications include a Masters of Business with marketing and Entrepreneurship Dundalk Institute of Technology in 2011. Her PhD from University College Cork, Ireland focused on market-oriented food innovation, under the supervision of Dr Joe Bogue of (University College Cork) and Dr Robert Hamlin (University of Otago).
Dr. George Onofrei is Senior Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management at the School of Business, Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland. He completed his PhD at University College Dublin's Smurfit Graduate Business School, Ireland, in the area of Lean Operations and Supply Chain Management. His research interests focus on supply chain practices, sustainability, business data analytics and behavioural operations in manufacturing and service industries. He has published articles in premier journals including International Journal of Production and Operations Management, Business Strategy and the Environment, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Production Planning and Control, Business Process Management Journal, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Operations Management Research. He is Vice-President of the Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG) and serves on the Executive Board of the European Operations Management Association (EurOMA).
Job Titles:
- Entrepreneurial & Innovative Futures, Social Change Futures, Innovation Roadmaps & Processes
Job Titles:
- Sustainable Tourism Destination Management
James Hanrahan BA, MSc, PhD is currently a lecturer in Tourism Management in the School of Business and Social Science at Atlantic Technological University Sligo. He has worked as a tour guide, tour operator, tourism manager, tourism entrepreneur, tourism consultant and lecturer in Ireland, New Zealand, Hawaii, Bulgaria, California, and Britain. He has a key set of publications related to sustainable destination management and an established track record in research supervision at PhD level. He continues to work for the public and private sector in tourism planning and development. Director of the Sustainable Tourism Observatory utilising UNWT, GSTC and European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) for Sustainable Destination management. Collaborations with Failte Ireland, Clare, Donegal and Galway County Councils, EarthCheck, UNWTO international sustainable tourism observatories.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Human Performance Futures, Leadership & Organisational Learning
Ken is a consultant in high-performance sport and business, an expert advisor in industry innovation, and a lecturer at Letterkenny Institute of Technology. He is an expert in human wellbeing and performance and has worked with many of the world's greatest sports champions and extreme explorers for over 25 years.
Ken has extensive experience working in higher education, high-performance sport and industry. He was Director of Sport Sciences at the English Institute of Sport, leading the support of Great Britain's athletes to their historic medal haul at the London 2012 Olympics. More recently, he launched and led the GlaxoSmithKline Human Performance Lab, an industry innovation centre committed to advancing human health & performance.
A Fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) with a PhD in sport and exercise science, Ken is currently a Non-Exec Director and board member at the English Institute of Sport.
Job Titles:
- Social Change & Transformation, Leadership Development & Organisational Learning
Dr Manuel Catena received his Doctorate in Education from the School of Social Sciences and Education at Queen's University of Belfast in 2016. He has a post-graduate Diploma, and a Post-graduate Certificates in Higher Education awarded by the University of Ulster. He also received a Master's degree in Education (with Specialism) awarded by the University of Ulster in 2009. He received a Diploma in Research Practice at LYIT in 2008. He is a graduate of the University of Málaga (Spain) where he studied Philosophy and Arts; BA (Hons), and a Higher Dip. in Education. He also have postgraduate qualifications in Pedagogy awarded by the Institute of Education, Pontifical University of Salamanca (Spain).
Manuel has more than twenty years of teaching experience. He currently works as a lecturer in Spanish at the Department of Law and Humanities of the School of Business Studies at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (Ireland). He coordinates modules of the MA in Learning and Teaching and supervises dissertations at Master's level. He is visiting lecturer at Málaga University, and at the University of Murcia.
Before moving to Ireland, Manuel obtained academic experience in Spain and Sweden, where he worked as a secondary school teacher. In addition, he has published and presented papers on linguistic studies at European conferences.
Job Titles:
- Border Midland and Western Region - Social Accounting Matrix ( 2002 - 2004 )
- Social Change, Learning & Skills, Leadership Development & Organisational Learning
Meadbh Ruane has lectured in the Department of Business Studies since 2002. She lectures on both under and post-graduate programmes in the areas of digital business, managing change and strategy. Meadbh has been facilitating Action Learning Sets at LYIT since 2008 as part of an executive MBS Innovation and Leadership programme. Additionally, she has extensive experience supervising participants in the completion of their dissertations on Master's programme in the Department of Business Studies.
In her role as a lecturer and facilitator, Meadbh has a strong belief in practice-based education and continuing professional development where student-participants are at the centre of their own learning. She incorporates pedagogy that links real-world and practitioner experience to academic theory.
Before joining LYIT Meadbh worked both nationally and internationally as a project manager and business analyst facilitating teams in developing software solution that addressed business challenges.
Meadbh was awarded her Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Business Studies from NUI Galway in 1990 and 1991 respectively and in 2018 was awarded her Professional Doctorate of Business Administration from the University of Northumbria.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Health Economics
- Member of the International Health Economics Obesity Modelling Expert Panel
Michelle Queally is a Lecturer at Atlantic Technology University in Galway City and is also a faculty board member for the clinical MSc in Obesity at Galway University Hospital, University of Galway where she also teaches. Michelle was awarded a Ph.D. in Economics from University of Galway. She also holds an MSc in Health Economics from University of Galway and a Bachelor of Business degree from Atlantic Technology University as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning (University of Galway). Before her role at ATU, Michelle was an appointed lecturer at University of Galway. Prior to this appointment, Michelle completed a Postdoctoral fellowship with CÚRAM, a Science Foundation Ireland Centre for medical devices, where she focused on the health economics of medical devices and clinical trial research. Michelle was also awarded the prestigious Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement Health Research Board Postdoctoral Fellowship which sought to design, implement, and evaluate an intervention to prevent childhood obesity.
Michelle is also an invited member of the International Health Economics Obesity Modelling Expert Panel and the International Economics of Obesity Special Interest Group, a Research Affiliate of the Centre for Economic Research on Inclusivity and Sustainability University of Galway along with being a member of the Irish Society of New Economists group which organises annual rotating conferences at selected Universities. Michelle was an invited discussant at international conferences and has presented her research at numerous international conferences and awarded best speaker during early research career stage. Michelle was an invited speaker at Safefood Head Office, School of Public Health, University College Cork, Institute of Public Health, Dublin and Galway University Hospital. Michelle has published in leading international peer-reviewed ABS rated journals, and has been invited on UK and Irish Government consultations including Oireachtas reports. Michelle has supervised numerous master students and is currently supervising a Ph.
Job Titles:
- Human Performance Futures
Rónán is a lecturer at the Atlantic Technological University, Donegal and is also a member of the Sport Ireland Institute, Performance Nutrition team. He currently works predominantly with Irish Sailing having previously worked across a range of national teams including Hockey, Rowing, Boxing, and Paralympics sports. Rónán was the Performance Nutritionist to Irish Olympic medallists Annalise Murphy (Sailing) and Gary and Paul O'Donovan (Rowing). He was also the Donegal GAA lead Performance Nutritionist 2015-2019, and is currently the Head of Performance Nutrition for the Donegal GAA Academy.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer in Marketing in the Faculty
Sarah Diffley is a lecturer in Marketing in the Faculty of Business. Sarah lectures on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in the areas of Marketing, Digital Marketing and Research. She also supervises on taught Masters and Masters by Research programmes. Sarah completed her Doctorate of Philosophy at Queen's Management School. Her thesis title is "Embedding Social Networking Sites in Relational Information Processes: An integrative framework of the antecedents, consequences and performance outcomes of social CRM". Her Master of Business Studies by Research was concerned with the implications of social networking sites for marketing in Irish businesses.
Job Titles:
- Social Change & Transformation, Learning & Skills
Simon is a Senior Lecturer at the LYIT School of Business. His main teaching interests are in Applied Economics. Simon has extensive experience of research supervision at Masters and PhD level. His research explores the economics of entrepreneurship and small business. Simon has worked on numerous funded projects (valued at over 1million). He is an award winning researcher and author. In 2011 he was awarded an Emerald Literati award for excellence. In 2018 Simon received a special recognition award from Lancaster University for publications from his post-doctorate research. His research has been widely published including in: the: Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development; Education + Work; Journal of Global Mobility; and the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Simon is Chair of the Entrepreneurship and Small Business track for the Irish Academy of Management annual conference.
Job Titles:
- Social Change & Transformation, Human Performance Futures, Learning & Skills, Market & Social Research
Job Titles:
- Innovative & Entrepreneurial Futures, Learning & Skills Futures, UX & Design Thinking, Innovation Roadmaps & Processes, Leadership Development & Organisational Learning
- Member of the DICE
Tena has been a member of the DICE team for the last 5 years, during which time she has organised many networking and industry engagement activities. She has worked with a colleague to devise a Design Thinking process called UNIQUE, a teaching workbook which divides the creative process into the six stages of Understand, Needs, Ideas, Quick prototyping, User testing and Evaluation.
Job Titles:
- Market & Social Science Research, Consumer Profiling & Marketing, Innovation Roadmaps & Processes, Leadership & Organisational Learning, Social Change Futures
- Senior Lecturer in Research Development, Faculty of Business, ATU Donegal
Job Titles:
- External Engagement Manager
Job Titles:
- Business Development Consultant
- Human Performance, Market & Social Science Research, Consumer Profiling & Marketing, Social Change & Transformation
Bio
Humphrey is a business development consultant in sports, tourism and outdoor recreation having previously worked as a developer of commercial, public and education sports businesses for private and public bodies in Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe. He also lectures part-time at Letterkenny Institute of Technology.
Job Titles:
- Digital & Marketing, Market & Social Science Research, Consumer Profiling & Marketing
Job Titles:
- UX & Design Thinking, Social Change & Transformation, Digital & Marketing Futures
Joe Coll is a design educator and practitioner. As a lecturer in Design at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, he delivers modules on User Experience Design, User Interface Design, Web Development, Brand Identity and Typographic Design. He has given presentations on brand strategy at the Local Enterprise Office, Donegal and has been a visiting lecturer at NCAD and Tallaght IT. He is an assessor of the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) and a member of the Institute of Designers Ireland (IDI).
Having previously worked in leading design studios in Dublin and London, in 2017 Joe launched Propeller, a design studio that helps individuals, companies and organisations move forward with value added brand strategy, identity, UX/UI design and development. He has worked for clients such as Eden Media, CoLab, Kinnegar Brewing, UCD & The Mater Hospital, Net Ministries Ireland and The Tax Clinic.
Mark Cullen is a technical artist and educator at LYIT. He delivers modules on emerging technologies, 3d modelling and animation, digital film and illustration. He has a keen interest in studying new creative production pipelines and technologies and transfers this knowledge to his teaching practice. He is currently researching and working in the areas of digital content production for augmented reality, virtual reality and games environments. He also continues to work on animation projects both 2d and 3d based.
Starting his career as an artist and art director in advertising houses in Dublin, Mark quickly moved into animation where he focused his interest in emerging realtime rendering environments and 3d. He co-founded Torc Interactive (later Instinct Technologies) in 1999 where he remained until 2008 . The company specialised in realtime rendering technology for games and visualisation and from this a sister company was formed, Darkwater Studios, to concentrate solely on games development.
While remaining a board member until its close in 2011 he left in 2008 to become an academic fellow in the University of Ulster specialising in digital human visualisation. He worked on methods of recreating human anatomy and articulation using 3d digital technology. His focus continues to remain on producing digital content for and using new and emerging technologies.
Job Titles:
- Founder of the Wallpaper Process Ltd
- UX & Design Thinking, Digital & Marketing Futures, Entrepreneurial & Innovative Futures, Innovation Roadmaps & Processes
Padraic's background is within multidisciplinary design. Beginning his career as a graphic designer he adapted and enhanced his design capabilities to include design for screen, moving image, innovation & entrepreneurship and in more recent years, the world of UX.
Padraic is also the founder of the Wallpaper Process Ltd, a pre-printed design thinking tool with clear instructional design thinking methods. He developed this concept in order to encourage all voices and full stakeholder engagement, cross disciplinary collaboration leading to clarity in the conversion points and ultimately a detailed evidence of the entire innovative process.
Job Titles:
- Leading Innovation & Entrepreneurial Futures, Learning & Skills Futures, Innovation Roadmaps & Processes, Leadership Development & Organisational Learning
Job Titles:
- Head of Department of Law & Humanities
- Learning & Skills Futures, Human Performance Futures, Social Change Futures, Social Change & Transformation
Siobhan is Head of Department of Law & Humanities and has many years' experience as a Law Lecturer in Family Law, Tort, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Restorative Justice, Workplace Learning and Street Law.
Having initially qualified as a Solicitor, she spent 8 years practising in a legal-aid firm in inner-city London during the 1990's, specialising in criminal defence and family law. Following a Master's Degree in Equality Studies at UCD, she began lecturing at LYIT.
Her teaching and learning & research interests centre on experiential learning and its contribution to student skills enhancement as well as community engagement with higher education institutions. She has been instrumental in developing the Street Law project in Ireland and has presented extensively, both nationally and internationally, on LYIT's Street Law programme.
Siobhan is a member of associate faculty at the Law Society of Ireland, tutoring criminal advocacy skills and has held various external examiner roles, currently at DKIT.
Job Titles:
- Learning & Skills Futures