Our Partners
Dr Suja Somanadhan
Lead Investigator: COVISION Project
Hello, my name is Suja. I am a mom of a 13-year-old boy “Aaryan” we live in Dublin. We experienced some challenging times (school closure, no sports, etc.) due to COVID-19. I am also a children’s nurse who worked with children and their families in hospital settings for many years. Currently, I teach in the university and conduct research with children, young people, and their families. I lead the COVISION project, which seeks to enhance the wellbeing of children during and after the COVID-19 pandemic by listening to children’s experiences with COVID-19 and working with children across the globe to co-design and co-produce a practical intervention for our community.
Carol Mutch
Professor of Critical Studies in Education in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland in New Zealand
Over her career, she has been a teacher, teacher educator, policy advisor, researcher and writer. Her current research focuses on the role of schools in crisis contexts, from natural disasters to Covid-19. She is also the Education Commissioner for the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO.
Dr Carmel Davies
Assistant Professor and Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning, School of Nursing Midwifery and Health Systems, UCD.
Carmel’s research interest is grounded in multidisciplinary applied social and health research. She is particularly interested in reciprocal knowledge translation and how patient/public involvement can inform applied research agendas and influence social /health policy. Her research methods include Participatory methods, Implementation Science and Rapid Realist Review. As part of her PhD, she
explored with children/ younger people the psychosocial issues associated with using animal organs
for human transplants.
Dr Jieh-Jiuh Wang
Planner, emergency manager and a research fellow specializing in sustainable development, disaster and risk management, urban planning and urban design, sustainable management of cultural heritage.
He obtained his PhD and M.Phil. from Columbia University, and Master of Science from National Taiwan University. Dr. Wang is currently professor at Architecture Department of Ming Chuan University, Taiwan. His professional experience and affiliation include: PI, Disaster Resilient School Program, MOE; Regeneration of Historic Sites Program, Bureau of Cultural Heritage, MOC; Co. P. I.: Program of Disaster Management Capacity-Building for Local Governments, National Fire Agency, MOI. He is a member of academic review committees including: Sci. & Tech. for Disaster Reduction and Prevention Discipline, Sustainable Development Discipline, Civil & Hydraulic Engineering Program, MOST. He is also a public safety adviser to Taipei City Government, and member of many Disaster Prevention and Protection Expert Consultation Committees, as well as Disaster Risk Reduction Education Counselling Group.
Dr Aoife De Brún
Assistant Professor/Ad Astra Fellow at the UCD Centre for Research, Education, and Innovation in Health Systems (UCD IRIS) at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College Dublin.
Aoife is a registered Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society with experience of multi-disciplinary projects in health research. Her research interests include advancing health systems methodologies and a range of topics in applied health and organisational psychology including team dynamics, collective leadership, medical decision-making and patient and public engagement in
research. She received a BA(Hons) in Psychology and a PhD in Social Sciences, and was awarded a
Fulbright Scholarship in 2018/2019 to collaborate with colleagues at Northwestern University,
Illinois, USA.
Dr Carmel Corrigan
Head of Participation and Rights Education at the Ombudsman for Children’s Office (OCO) in Ireland.
Hello. I’m Carmel and I work for the Ombudsman for Children’s Office in Ireland, also known as the OCO. My job involves making children and adults more aware of children’s rights and the OCO, consulting with children to make their views known to decision-makers and supporting our Youth Advisory Panel to be involved in the work of our office. I have worked with children in all kinds of circumstances including children living in Direct Provision, children experiencing family homelessness, children in care, and children impacted by Brexit. Before working for the OCO I was self-employed for 18 years as a research consultant. My interests are children’s rights, particularly their right to be heard, children’s policy and child law. I have a daughter in university and a son who is finishing secondary school in 2022, an enormous extended family, a crazy dog and a cat who thinks she is a princess.
Dr Helen McAneney
Research Scientist at UCD Centre for Research, Education, and Innovation in Health Systems (UCD IRIS) at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College Dublin.
Hi, my name is Helen. I am a researcher at the University College Dublin in Ireland. I am also a mum of two girls, Aeryn and Emily, as well as to the biggest kid of all, my husband Jonny. We are an inquisitive family, always trying to work out how things work, or just having a chat about the world. COVID-19 is a life event that we will all tell stories about. For me, it has been wonderful to have had everyone at home, to help the girls with their learning, and to go for walks together. Although I am a researcher who enjoys(!) working with numbers, I also enjoy being creative in the garden, playing the piano (as do both girls), baking cakes and other treats and doing cross-stitch. The last year has shown me to value all these creative outlets, and this project is now your turn to show us your creative ‘voice’ through your creations during and due to COVID-19.
Dr. Debbie Sheppard-LeMoine
Dean of the Faculty of Nursing, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Dr. Debbie Sheppard-LeMoine joined the University of Windsor as Dean of the Faculty of Nursing in Sept. 2021. Coming from Nova Scotia with 30 years of experience as a Canadian educator, including 15 years of international teaching, research and project experience, Debbie’s program of research includes successfully leading an international research team on interprofessional learning within a simulated, family assessment environment.
Harry Shier
Research Scientist at UCD Centre for Research, Education, and Innovation in Health Systems (UCD IRIS) at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College Dublin.
Writer, researcher, facilitator and commentator on children’s rights, participation and play. Born in Belfast, started as a playworker in the UK, then worked in children’s rights and participation. Moved to Nicaragua, Central America in 2001 to work with local community education organisation CESESMA, supporting child workers on coffee plantations claiming their rights. Awarded PhD at Queen’s University Belfast in 2016 for his study on Nicaraguan children’s perceptions of human rights in school. Now lives in Newbridge, Co Kildare on the banks of the River Liffey with wife María, daughter Laura and dogs Scrobbles and Tania.
Kay Tisdall
Professor of Childhood Policy at the University of Edinburgh.
I work on children’s human rights, in teaching, research and policy. I am part of the Childhood and Youth Studies Research Group at the University. I have been learning from children and young people, and other adults around the world, particularly around children and young people’s participation.
Hayda Alves
Adjunct Professor of the Nursing Course, Institute of Humanity and Health and Collaborating Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Public Health at Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Brazil
Hello, my name is Hayda. I am Brazilian and I live in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I am a professor at the Fluminense Federal University, at Rio das Ostras campus. I love working with rural communities and social movements. I collaborate with participatory health research projects involving these groups, but especially adolescents and young people, families, agrarian reform with quilombola or maroons communities of African heritage. Much of my work is dedicated to public health and popular education, involving many people and communities, their cultures and knowledge: in short, their ways of living in the world. I am part of an international participatory research network called ICPHR - International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research. In this network I belong to a sub-group called Kids in Action. I am also interested in art education with special affection for fanzines.
Revathi N. Krishna
Research Fellow on the Community-led Bushfire Resilience Program at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and a PhD candidate at Monash University Accident Research Centre.
My name is Revathi, mum to my exuberant 2-year-old. Like all mums, I want to make sure the world is a safe space for my daughter and other children like yourselves. I also think it is important to know what to do during emergencies. So, in my PhD research, I worked with children to develop a program to learn & teach disaster preparedness, which they then delivered to their friends in a neighbouring suburb in the inner-city slums of Chennai, India. As a clinical psychologist, I am passionate about children’s (your) mental health and ensuring their (your) voices are heard in issues that affect their (your) wellbeing. In my free time, I love playing with my toddler at parks, gardening and sewing.
Jacinta Owens
Educator, writer and filmmaker. She joined the UCD Innovation Academy as a Facilitation Specialist in early 2018.
Jacinta’s focus is on helping people discover, uncover and recover their innovative, creative potential through practical techniques and tools. Jacinta delivers experiential workshops on Creative Mindset, Empathy, Design Thinking, Storytelling, Videomaking and Entrepreneurial Mindset to a diverse range of learners such as schools, Writers, Educators, corporate groups, Undergrad and Postgrad students in Ireland and the University of Malaya (KL), and most recently, lecturers in Vietnam National University (Hanoi). Jacinta is also a Screenwriter, funded by Northern Ireland Screen, Galway Film Centre, RTE
and the British Film Institute Network. She holds an MSc in Feature Film production from
Staffordshire University and is a graduate of the Robert McKee Story programme.
Tracey Anne Wall
Chief Director of Nursing for the Childrens Health Ireland Group (CHI).
Tracey Wall is the A/Chief Director of Nursing for the Children's Health Ireland Group (CHI). Prior to this appointment, Tracey worked as the Director of Nursing in CHI at Crumlin Hospital, and as the Deputy Director of Nursing. Tracey is a Registered Children’s and General nurse with over 29 years’ extensive clinical and managerial experience working with children and families across a wide variety of disabilities, acute and chronic illnesses, including Paediatric Intensive Care. As Director of Nursing
in CHI Crumlin, she had the responsibility for leading a large workforce, developing and delivering
a professional nursing service across a complex organisation.
Lisa Gibbs
Director, Child & Community Wellbeing Unit, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health Lead of Community Resilience, Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety University of Melbourne.
My research focuses on two main areas – 1) child health and wellbeing and 2) disaster resilience, and these areas combine when I focus on the experiences of children and teenagers in disasters. I am committed to doing research that helps to improve people’s lives and I have found the best way to do that is to work in partnership with the people whose lives or work roles are central to the research topic
(i.e. a participatory approach). I am part of an International Collaboration for Participatory Health
Research and have the pleasure of coordinating the network of members involved in doing
participatory research with children.
Dr Kati Marinkovic Chávez
Research Fellow, Child and Community Wellbeing Unit, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne
Hi, I’m Kati. I’m from Chile and moved to Australia a few years ago, so I speak Spanish and English. I’m a psychologist and a researcher. I’m very interested in children and young people’s opinions and ideas and helping them carry out their own research. I’m very grateful to be learning from children and young people in different parts of the world on topics related to COVID-19, natural disasters, climate change and family violence. What I admire the most from children and young people are their creativity and passion for fairness and justice.
Ayrton Kelly
Recent graduate of UCD where he did his Bachelor’s in Commerce (International) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Design Thinking for Sustainability
Ayrton has a vast amount of expertise-by-experience of youth participation and engagement. He has participated and engaged with a number of youth organisations including Spunout.ie, BeLonG To Youth Services, Youth Work Ireland, Jigsaw Donegal and Donegal Youth Service. In 2017, Ayrton became a participant in the Youth Advisory Group and subsequently the Oversight Committee for the development of the LGBTI+ National Youth Strategy (Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2018). The insight gained from this experience informed his contribution to a forthcoming chapter on participatory policymaking, entitled: ‘Visible, valued and included: Prioritising youth participation in policy-making for the Irish LGBTI+ National Youth Strategy (Ceatha, Kelly and Killeen, 2022). Ayrton brings to the COVISION project both his academic experience of marketing, communications
and design thinking and his personal experiences with participatory policymaking and research.
Thilo Kroll
Hi, my name is Thilo. I work as a professor and researcher at the University College Dublin in Ireland.
I am very excited to be part of this project. The COVID-19 virus has caught us all by surprise and we had to learn how to deal with it. I love the idea that all of us are creative. It doesn’t matter how young or old we are. Over the past year, I took a lot of photographs, found my guitar again and wrote a lot. This helped me when we could not go out much or see friends. I am always amazed what children and real people of all ages do to manage difficulties in their lives. We can learn a lot from each other.