Dr Liz O’Sullivan
Liz is a Lecturer in Nutrition and is the Programme Chair of the Public Health Nutrition degree programme at TU Dublin. Liz received her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Cornell University in 2016. Her dissertation research focused on breastfeeding and breast milk sharing. Her research interests remain in the field of breastfeeding, and along with her work on infant and young child feeding in emergencies, she has done research on breastfeeding supports in general in Ireland. In 2022, she published a report with Bainne Beatha, a breastfeeding advocacy group, on the experiences of >5,000 Irish women who received breastfeeding support in the Irish healthcare system. Liz is passionate about breastfeeding and strongly believes that all families deserve skilled support, and evidence-based information that is free from commercial influence.
Dr Aileen Kennedy
Dr Aileen Kennedy is a Registered Dietitian and Lecturer in Dietetics in TU Dublin. Aileen teaches on the BSc in Human Nutrition & Dietetics and BSc in Public Health Nutrition programmes in TU Dublin. Aileen completed her PhD in Nutrition at Dublin City University in 2014. Her dissertation research focussed on breastfeeding and complementary feeding and the development of food preference during the first year of life. Aileen’s research since her PhD has been concerned with early life and childhood nutrition, with a continued emphasis on breastfeeding and infant and young child feeding in emergencies. More recently, babies in neonatal care and breastfeeding are of particular interest to Aileen as her youngest child was born prematurely.
Lorraine Tham
Lorraine is a Master of Philosophy student at the School of Biological, Health and Sports Sciences in Technological University Dublin who is passionate about health equity and breaking down barriers to accessing appropriate maternal, infant and child health supports. Lorraine holds a BSc Degree in Health and Society from Dublin City University, from where her interest in maternal, infant and child health grew. Lorraine has assisted in research that investigated the prevalence and outcomes of people with gestational diabetes mellitus who gave birth in Irish hospitals between 2015 and 2018. Most recently, Lorraine assisted with qualitative research that explored the experiences of families whose infants were born prematurely during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. Lorraine’s role in this project is to carry out qualitative research exploring how infant and young child feeding is supported by health care professionals and volunteer groups on the island of Ireland and how these supports could form part of an infant and young child feeding in emergencies preparedness plan for the island of Ireland.
Dr Clare Patton
Dr Clare Patton is a lecturer in law at Queen’s University Belfast. Her area of expertise is infant and young child feeding as a human right. Her recent article examines the legal argument for a right to breastfeed to be recognised with the UN human rights system. She is also a WHO consultant advising on matters relating to Commercial Determinants of Health in a Business and Human Rights framework. Clare has also published about other topics of commercial determinants of female and child such as the effect of ‘pink ribbon’ campaigns on the health and wellbeing of women living with breast cancer and the effect of the ‘wellness’ industry on women and girls during their reproductive years. Clare is a strong advocate for the rights of women and girls to make informed choice in all aspects of their lives, especially health related.
Dr Samantha Hopkins
Samantha Hopkins is a Research Fellow in the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast. She graduated in 2022 with a PhD in law from Queen’s in the area of business and human rights. Her interests specifically lie in the ways corporate language, or language adopted by corporations, is used in order to influence the world around them and their place within it. She has been involved as a Research Assistant on the Edinburgh/Melbourne project ‘Tech-Sex: technology, sexuality and the law’, examining the legal impacts and language of online safety provisions and the platforms involved in them.
Dr Peter Doran
Dr Peter Doran is a Senior Lecturer in environment and law at the School of Law, Queens University Belfast. A former journalist, Peter has also worked as a researcher with the parliaments in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. He is also a senior writer for the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a journal of record at UN negotiations on environment and development. His book, A Political Economy of Attention, Consumerism and Mindfulness: Towards a Mindful Commons, brings together a number of his long-standing research interests in the politics of wellbeing, ecology and practices of askesis (zen philosophy). He has also written on US foreign policy, UN negotiations, climate change, wellbeing politics, and, most recently, on the importance of contingency and trauma in the fate of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement. Peter is a co-founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Hub for the island of Ireland, and the Environmental Justice Network Ireland (EJNI). These are all-island collaborations bringing together scholars, activists and policy communities engaged in the economic and cultural dimensions of the Just Transition on the island of Ireland, within the global social movements for environmental justice and prosperity beyond growth. In recent work, Peter led an expert submission to the Citizens Assembly on Biodiversity Loss in the Republic of Ireland, contributing to a case for consideration of an amendment to the Irish constitution incorporating the Rights of Nature and the Human Rights to a flourishing environment.
