Prof Dr Pat O'Connor

“GenPORT provides resources to explore knowledge about variation in the extent to which men are differentially invested in claims to superiority, authority, privileging; the ways in which gender continues to map young people’ s lives; the structural and cultural processes through which women and their work continue to be devalued in our society; and the ways in which the economic system and the health/welfare systems are in tension because of the refusal to face the social and cultural implications of women’s economic participation.”

Prof O'Connor has published roughly 100 peer reviewed publications.  In the area of higher education these include articles in Studies in Higher Education; Current Sociology; Gender and Education (Special Issue) Globalised Re/Gendering of the Academy and Leadership; Higher Education Research and Development (Special Issue on Leadership);  Educational Management, Administration and Diversity; European Journal of Higher Education; Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion etc. Prof O’Connor is involved in an EU funded FP7 (2012-17) seven country cross-national research project on Female Empowerment in Science and Technology in Academia (FESTA) including Sweden, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, Denmark and Ireland.  Her previous cross national project was the Women in Higher Education Management Network (WHEM) study of senior management in Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Sweden, South Africa, Portugal, Sweden the UK and Ireland.  She has been an Evaluator for the European Science Foundation; for Nordic Spaces; and for the Australian Science Foundation; and was Chair of the International Research Panel for the awarding of Linnaeus funding. She has been a visiting professor at the Institute of Education in London; at the University of Aveiro; at GEXcel Linkoping; at Deakin University and at the University of Melbourne

 

Prof O’Connor graduated with a B.Soc Sc (1st) and an M. Soc Sc. (1st) from UCD and a PhD from the University of London. She worked in the ESRI (Dublin); Bedford and Royal Holloway College (University of London); NISW (London) and Waterford Institute of Technology before coming to the University of Limerick. She was the first woman to be appointed at (full) Professorial level in the University of Limerick in 1997.