CRISP

Catherine McGuinn (Ph D) is a lecturer in Marketing and Director of CRISP (Research Centre) at the Institute of Technology, Sligo,  a graduate member of the Marketing Institute of Ireland and the Irish Academy of Management. Catherine has taught several marketing modules and research methods at both under and post graduate level. Catherine is a member of the Academic Council, has acted as Head of Department and is a former chair of the Research and Innovation committee of the Academic Council. Catherine has supervised a number of Masters by Research to completion and is currently supervises a PhD. Catherine has authored and co-authored at many national and international conferences (IAM, THRIC, ENVIRON). Research interests include customer service, CSR, professional marketing practice, retail and public sector marketing.

Valerie Mc Taggart PhD (c) is a lecturer in Global Business Services, at the Institute of Technology, Sligo. She has a Degree from the University of Ulster at Jordanstown in Applied Consumer Studies, a BA Hons Degree in Applied Consumer Studies from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, a Master’s in Business from John Moors University Liverpool, and an Ordinary Degree in Teaching and Education from NUIG. Valerie is in the process of completing my PhD which focuses on the ‘Digital Transformation in Traditional Organisations’ through DCU School of Business. She is also the director of IT Sligo’s research team on the Future Digital Organisation.

Prior to joining IT Sligo as a full-time member of the academic team in 2018, Valerie worked in financial services in Ireland and UK for over twenty years undertaking several roles including project management, leadership and training and development.

She is research active in a number of areas, presenting her research at several national and international.

Dr. Majella Mulkeen is a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the Institute of Technology Sligo where she teaches sociology, social policy, equality and care. Her research interests include equality, gender, and care. Her work on equality and emancipatory practice features in the core textbook Applied Social Studies-An introduction for students in Ireland (2013, Eds Share, P. & Lalor, K.). She has published on gendered processes in child protection practice (2012) and on marketisation in Irish social care (2016) in the peer reviewed Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. She completed her doctoral studies on the centrality of the affective sphere in social care practice and its neglect within regulatory frameworks. She co-edited a Special Edition of the Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies (2020) on the Standards of Proficiency in Social Care. She is author of Care and the Standards of Proficiency for Social Care (2020), bridging care scholarship and social care theory and practice in a critical assessment of the relational and emotional dynamics of care in the Standards. She is currently Programme Chair of the BA Social Care Practice.

Mary O’ Keeffe is a Tourism / Marketing Lecturer in the Department of Marketing, Tourism and Sport. Prior to joining IT Sligo, Mary worked with CERT providing education / training services to the Irish tourism sector. She has been a Guest Lecturer at the Florida University, Valencia, Spain, developing a new module on Experiential Tourism Marketing. 

Mary also supervises research dissertations at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Recent research interests include heritage tourism and social value creation, community tourism and service excellence in tourism settings. Mary was involved in hosting THRIC 2017 (Tourism and Hospitality Research Conference) at IT Sligo and is currently collaborating with fellow CUA (Connacht Ulster Alliance) partners on a PRTC proposal (Post Graduate Research Training Centre). Supporting regional development, the PRTC initiative, provides scope for further research, of regional and national interest, incorporating the major strands and strengths of heritage, tourism, and archaeology in Ireland’s West and North-West.

Cathy O’Kelly is an experienced professional and academic, based at The Institute of Technology, Sligo, Ireland, specialising in Management, Professional Skills and Entrepreneurship.

Having worked with a number of multi-national organisations, including being a member of the start-up team for Hewlett Packard Manufacturing (Irl). Ltd, Cathy is also an experienced entrepreneur. Cathy gained international experience working with the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, Morimura International Trading Company, New York City, USA., Bahrain Polytechnic, Kingdom of Bahrain and Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Cathy was a member of the Research and Development Team for the Irish Strategic Innovation Funded, Accelerating Campus Entrepreneurship (ACE) project. The aim of ACE was to develop an innovative approach to entrepreneurship education in Ireland, with a particular emphasis on students from non-business disciplines. Current research interests include advancing problem based learning approaches to education, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the use of technology in teaching.

JUAN MANUEL REAL-ESPINOSA is Assistant Lecturer in Spanish at the Sligo Institute of Technology. He has a BA in Hispanic Linguistics and Literature from the University of Seville, Spain, and an MA in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language from the University of La Rioja, Spain. Currently he is in his third year of the Ph.D. programme in Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, at UCD. Previously, he developed his teaching career as a Spanish teacher at the Instituto Cervantes in Istanbul, Cairo, and Dublin, at Fatih University in Istanbul and at University College Dublin. He was Head of the academic department of Instituto Cervantes in Porto Alegre from 2009 to 2016. He lectures on several Master’s programs for teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language and in the last fifteen years he has collaborated on different teacher training programs across Europe, America and Asia. His research interests include Mobile Assisted Language Learning, Second Language Acquisition, Teaching Grammar in Second Language Acquisition, Cognitive Linguistics, Cultural Factors in Second Language Learning, History of Spanish Language and History of Spanish Literature.

Maria Scanlon is a Lecturer in Accounting at IT Sligo having previously worked at DCU Business School. Maria qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers where she worked as an assistant manager in Audit Services and completed a three-month secondment at PwC Boston. Maria has lectured at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her main subject areas include audit, financial reporting and financial management.

Maria is currently studying for her PhD at the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School UCD. Her research examines auditor-client interactions particularly in the context of recent EU Audit Reform legislation. Maria has presented her research at a number of international and national doctoral seminars and was the Irish Accounting and Finance Association (IAFA) nominee at the 2017 American Accounting Association (AAA) doctoral consortium.

Joanna Sweeney is an academic researcher and educator in the fields of Tourism & Marketing. Before joining IT Sligo in 2003, Joanna Sweeney previously worked in the tourism industry Internationally & in Ireland for over 10 years in the areas of aviation, events & hospitality. Joanna is an active researcher & has presented at numerous conferences including conferences in the field of tourism and has published numerous Peer reviewed research papers in areas such as voluntourism, agritourism, ethnomusicology, film induced tourism & event management which have appeared in academic publications & conferences proceedings. As an educator, Joanna has worked as a lecturer and tutor to third level students in a variety of subject areas including Adventure Tourism, Event Management, Marketing Ethics, Non Profit Marketing, Volunteer tourism, Tourism concepts & principles. While she was a student she was active in setting up an Organic Society & environmental society on campus. In addition to tourism, her areas of expertise include volunteer tourism, civic engagement & event project  management.

Dr. Leonard Taylor is a lecturer in law, with an LLM and PhD in human rights law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights. He researches on the human rights law, the history of human rights and political Catholicism.  Leonard was previously a lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights. He has recently published a monograph with Cambridge University Press, titled Catholic Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights. Leonard has presented in a number of international conferences with a focus on the history of human rights and political Catholicism. He currently lectures in law, political theory, human rights and policy, and corporate social responsibility, in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. 

Leonard has been a member of development teams for an undergraduate BA Business and Law degree (QQI level 8), a postgraduate MA in Professional Leadership (QQI level 9), and a postgraduate MA in Social Work (QQI level 9), where he developed modules in law, professional ethics, and corporate social responsibility. Leonard is also a membership of IT Sligo Research Ethics Committee. Leonard is currently an external examiner for Health and Social Care undergraduate programmes in the School of Science of Letterkenny Institute of Technology.

Leonard is a member of the Irish Association of Law Teachers (2020-2021), the Law and Society Association (LSA) (2020-2021), the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS) (2020-2021), and the Law and Religion Scholars Network (LARSN) (2020-2021).