My academic field is social science in which I am Professor of Comparative Politics. I have published extensively on gender equality issues in public life. Recent publications include the books Politics and Gender in Ireland: the Quest for Political Agency (contributing co-editor with F. Buckley, 2015) and States of Democracy: Gender and Politics in the European Union (contributing editor, 2015). An expert in the political, legislative and legal aspects of national and European policy relating to gender equality, I am regularly commissioned by European institutions and agencies to provide comparative research reports, including the recent study on Mapping the Representation of Women and Men in Legal Professions across the EU (2017, Galligan et al) for the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI). I was a member of the UK Independent Commission of Inquiry on The Consequences of Devolution for the UK House of Commons (the McKay Commission), in 2013. In 2015 I was independent chairperson of the Irish Fianna Fail Markievicz Commission on measures to implement the 30% candidate gender quota. I was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. In 2017 I received an Honorary Doctorate in Social Science from the University of Edinburgh. In 2022 I became chair of the Royal Irish Academy’s Ethical, Political, Legal and Philosophical Studies Committee.

gender and politics, equality in higher education