National University of Ireland, Galway

NUI Galway Staff 

The Socio-Economic Marine Research Group is made up of personnel from a range of university departments. The Director of the unit is  Dr Stephen Hynes who is a natural resource and environmental economist. Stephen specializes in the use of spatial micro-simulation modelling approaches for environmental policy analysis and the use of non-market valuation techniques for estimating the value of marine ecosystem services. Other members  of the research team include:

Professor Michael Cuddy is the Ryan Institute Professor of Economics at NUI Galway. His research is mainly in the fields of regional and rural development, agricultural economics and transition economics.

Brendan Flynn is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science & Sociology. He is currently involved in research in the areas of EU environmental policy, subsidiarity in a European context, issues surrounding the implementation of EU policies and Irish environmental policy. Brenda is also currently involved in a project entitled “Fisheries Knowledge”  which is examining fishermen’s attitude to regulation and their knowledge on management practices in regards to fragile marine ecosystems.

Natasha Evers is a Lecturer in marketing at NUI Galway. She joined the Marketing Discipline in NUI Galway in September 2008, having had previously lectured in International Business and Marketing at the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown, Dublin. She joined the SEMRU team in 2010 as a partner on the INTERREG IVB Atlantic Area European Programme ShareBiotech.  

Paul Ryan is a Lecturer in management studies at NUI, Galway and also a project leader at the Centre for Innovation & Structural Change (CISC). Like Natasha, Paul joined the SEMRU team as part of the ShareBiotech project.

Cathal O'Donoghue is head of the Rural Economy Research Centre, Teagasc. Cathal is also an economist, whose research is mainly in the area of applied public economics, focusing on the impact of household sector, tax and social policy on poverty, inequality, work incentives and environmental pollution. In addition, this work has extended into labour economics, economic demography and environmental economics.

Thomas Van Rensburg is a natural resource and environmental economist with expertise in the environment and development field. He has previously employed social networking theory to evaluate local institutions in the governance of marine resources such as marine protected areas. Tom’s also conducts research in the areas of experimental economics, the ecosystems approach to fisheries management, water resources and renewable energy.

Ilaria Nardello is the national Coordinator  of the Irish National Marine Biotechnology Programme and works in the Irish Marine Institute Ilaria previously coordinated the activities of a multidisciplinary group of analysts in the framework of the Marine Climate Change Research program, at the Marine Institute of Ireland. She is a member of the European Union Marine Observation and Data Expert Group (MODEG), and of the Advisory Group on Climate Change (ADGCLIM) for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). She has a permanent educational affiliation with the faculty of Natural Sciences in the University of Florence (Italy), in the subject of Ecology.

Daniel Norton is currently an EPA funded researcher with SEMRU in NUIG. His research project which is entitled Benefit Transfer in Irish Waters involves the use of benefit transfer non-market valuation techniques to estimate the value of achieving “good ecological status” in Irish water bodies

Geraldine Murphy joined SEMRU as an EPA-funded researcher in February 2012. Her EPA STRIVE funded research work involves the use of discrete choice methods to calculate generic values for water resources in Ireland. Using a choice experiment (CE), Geraldine will estimate the economic value that Irish citizens place on water quality itself as well as the factors that impact upon it. In addition, she intends to investigate the effects of different payment vehicles on CE valuation for generic water features.

Fergal Curtin joined SEMRU in October last year as Research Assistant. Fergal is based with the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) in Dublin supporting its Shipping Market program and he acts as a conduit between IMDO-SEMRU to strengthen the collaborative research interaction of both bodies.

Amaya Vega joined SEMRU recently as a Postdoctoral Researcher. Amaya’s areas of interest include the effect of transport infrastructure on regional and rural development, the assessment of the sustainability of transport systems and the analysis of transport demand and travel mode choice. More recently, Amaya has become interested in the area of maritime economics, with particular interest in the valuation of maritime freight transport demand, inter-modal connectivity and accessibility to transport infrastructure and the promotion of Short Sea Shipping in Ireland.

Rebecca Corless recently joined SEMRU as a Research Assisant. Rebecca joined NUI Galway in November 2010 working on the EU INTERREG project ShareBiotech.

Naomi Foley joined SEMRU as a postdoctoral researcher on the Interreg Marnet project in February 2013. Naomi holds a PhD (Economics) from NUI Galway. Naomi’s research interests include bioeconomic modelling, fisheries economics and management and ecosystem good and services.

Associate Institute Team Members

Karyn Morrissey is a Lecturer in Economic Geography in the University of Liverpool and a past Beaufort Researcher in SEMRU. Her research examines the down-stream impact of the marine sector on other sector’s in the Irish economy. Karyn’s work to date has been interdisciplinary in nature, primarily in the fields of economics and quantitative geography

Cathal Buckley is a Research Officer in the Rural Economy Research Centre, Teagasc. His research has been in the areas of agricultural economics, and the analysis of agri-environment policy. Cathal is currently conducting an analysis of the socio-economic impact of the implementation of the measures contained in the National Action Programme under the Nitrates Directive on farms in  a number of water catchments across Ireland. Particular emphasis is this research is placed on the attitudes and awareness of the farming community to water pollution issues, the measures used to address them and the economic impact of changing agricultural practises to comply with the measures under the Nitrates and Water Framework Directives.

Áine Macken Walsh is a Research Officer in the Rural Economy Research Centre, Teagasc. She commenced with RERC in 2006, coming from the National University of Ireland, Galway where she held the position of administrative manager of a 4-year pan-European 5th Framework research project & PhD programme - Integrated Development of Agricultural and Rural Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe (IDARI). Her PhD research, undertaken as part of the IDARI project at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, NUI, Galway, focused on EU accession and the transposition of the governance and rural development model to post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe.

Mavra Stithou is a post graduate in the Department of Economics, Stirling University, Scotland. Under the supervision of Professor Nick Hanley and Dr Stephen Hynes, Mavra is using the choice experiment method to estimate the value of improvements in a number of components of ecological status on two Irish waterways.

Wadim Strielkowski is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague. He is known for his research on the economics of migration. His research interests also include economics of small and medium enterprises, rural development, environmental economics and e-tourism. He is currently working with SEMRU on an analysis of small and medium enterprises the Irish marine tourism sector. Wadim also does some interesting research in relation to the " dark side of economics".

PhD Students

Peter Cush