Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Teaching Fellow on the BA Education Studies
- IOE - Education, Practice & Society
- UCL Institute of Education
- Lecturer (Teaching) MA Education
- IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment
- UCL Institute of Education
- Teaching Fellow in English for Academic Purposes
- IOE - Culture, Communication & Media
- UCL Institute of Education
I was born and raised in a small town in the Republic of Ireland. In 2010, I obtained a Bachelor in Religious Education and Music (with QTS) from Dublin City University. I moved to Belgium shortly thereafter, where I was awarded an MA in Philosophy from the Higher Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven. I remained at KU Leuven until 2014, where I later obtained an M.Sc. in Educational Sciences.
For several years, I have worked as a secondary and primary school supply teacher across the UK and Ireland. From 2012-2014, I worked as an EFL Teacher at AEON Corporation in Tokyo, Japan. I came to London in 2014 to pursue my doctoral studies at the UCL Institute of Education, which I completed in 2020 and which focused on an engagement with the French existentialist tradition in philosophy (particularly the work of Jean-Paul Sartre) in order to offer a new way in which to account for the concrete, lived experiences of teaching. Since 2015, I have been working at UCL in various capacities, and continue to be involved in national and international research communities in the field of philosophy of education.


I am an early career researcher in philosophy of education. My PhD research focused on the existentialist movement in philosophy (in particular, the work of Jean-Paul Sartre). Broadly speaking, my research attempts to reimagine forms of accounting for educational practices in ways that seek to overcome technicist descriptions by being existentially sensitive to the concrete, lived realities of education.
I am interested in the intersection of literature, philosophy and education for this purpose, but I also have a keen interest in the interrogation and reformulation of public policy on education (e.g. in relation to concepts such as accountability and governance, teacher evaluation, curriculum and pedagogy).
More recently, I have begun work on the relationship between mental health, philosophy and education, and am currently involved in a pilot project at Warwick University that explores this in relation to mental health initiatives in UK secondary schools.
I am an Elected Committee Member of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, who generously funded my PhD research. I co-organise the weekly PESGB London Branch seminars. I am also involved in several exchange programmes internationally, including 'International Frontiers' (Kyoto University) and the 'European Philosophy of Education Colloquium' (KU Leuven (Belgium), the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), the University of Padua (Italy), Edge Hill University (UK), and NUI Galway (Ireland).
- ‘Introduction to Education Studies’ (1st year)
- ‘Living in a Schooled Society’ (1st year)
- ‘Philosophical Reflections on Education with Film (1st year)
- ‘Philosophical Research in Education’ (2nd year)
- ‘Ways of Thinking and Ways of Being’ (2nd year)
- ‘What is Education?’
- ‘Educational Representations through Media’
2013 | Master of Science | Katholieke Universiteit Leuven | |
2011 | Master of Arts | Katholieke Universiteit Leuven | |
2010 | Bachelor of Education | Dublin City University |