I completed my primary degree in NUI Galway in Geography and History and achieved a First Class Honours Degree in the Higher Diploma in

Education the following year.  Following a short post primary teaching career, I returned to NUI Galway in 2005, having been awarded a Teagasc Walsh

Fellowship for PhD research in the area of Agricultural Change and Rural Development.  In January 2009, I was appointed Research Officer and Project

Coordinator of the DERREG EU Framework 7 project, led by Dr. John McDonagh. My academic training is in Rural and Agricultural Geography, and

my interests are specifically focused around processes of social, cultural and economic change for rural inhabitants. My PhD research dealt with the very

nature of disparities between rural policy and practice at national and international scales, and the serious implications for rural farm families across all

generational groups. Illustrating the complexity of the rural in terms of the everyday lived experience of farm families, the importance of context and

place, and the ways in which these dimensions impacted upon the role of service practitioners, i.e., agricultural advisers, was another key aspect of this

research.  In 2012, I was appointed Director of the Master of Arts in Rural Sustainability.