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Visiting Researchers and Scholars

Helena Antunes

Visiting Doctoral Researcher | Anthropology, Sustainability and Gender Studies in Rural Communities (December 2025)

Helena Antunes is a doctoral researcher and interdisciplinary anthropologist affiliated with CETRAD – Centre for Transdisciplinary Development Studies, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (Portugal), and the University of Salamanca (Spain). Her doctoral research is funded by a fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the Côa Foundation. Her work is situated at the intersection of gender studies, rural development, digital inequalities, land and property access, ecofeminism and degrowth, with a particular focus on low-density rural territories. She employs feminist, qualitative and participatory methodologies, combining academic research with community-engaged and practice-based approaches.

During her time at the Centre for Global Women’s Studies, University of Galway, Helena is advancing research linked to her doctoral project, which examines how land and property ownership intersect with gendered power relations in rural contexts. Her work explores the implications of women’s exclusion from land ownership for their social, environmental, economic and civic participation, and identifies community-based and policy-relevant pathways to promote gender equality, women’s land and property rights, digital inclusion and ecofeminist approaches in rural areas. This visiting period contributes to comparative perspectives on land ownership across Ireland, Portugal and Spain and fosters interdisciplinary dialogue on global and rural feminisms.

Research interests

  • Gender and women’s studies
  • Rural inequalities and low-density territories
  • Land ownership and women’s access to property
  • Digital divide and digital inclusion
  • Ecofeminism and agroecology
  • Feminist and participatory methodologies
  • Degrowth and sustainable development

Bina Agarwal

Visiting scholar (April 2023)

Bina Agarwal is Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK. She has been President of the International Society for Ecological Economics; President of the International Association for Feminist Economics; and visiting professor at Cambridge, Harvard, and Princeton. She holds several honorary doctorates.

Her over 100 academic papers and 13 books, include the award-winning book: A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (Cambridge University Press 1994); Gender and Green Governance (OUP, 2010) and Gender Challenges (OUP, 2016), a three-volume compendium of her selected papers. Her pioneering work on gender and land rights and on environmental governance has had global impact. In 2005 she led a successful civil society campaign to make India’s Hindu Inheritance law gender equal. She is currently working on group farming in Asia and Europe.

Agarwal’s many awards include a Padma Shri from India’s President; several book prizes; the Leontief Prize ‘for advancing the frontiers of economic thought’; the Louis Malassis International Scientist Prize for ‘an outstanding career in agricultural development,’ and the International Balzan Prize 2017. She is only the second woman from the Global South to win the Balzan prize since its inception in 1961. See also, www.binaagarwal.com.

Audrey Rousseau 

Visiting scholar (April 2023)

Audrey Rousseau is an Associate professor in sociology at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), Canada. She specializes in the study of contemporary memorial processes, including the politics of recognition and redress of historical injustices in relation to colonial and gender-based violence experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, as well as the confinement and forced labour of thousands of women in religious institutions in Ireland (18-20th centuries). Aside from two book chapters (University Press of Florida and Manchester University Press), she has mostly published in French-speaking journals such as Études Irlandaises, Études Féministes, and Criminocorpus 

Professor Haroon Akram Lodhi, Trent University

Visiting scholar (April 2023)

Haroon Akram-Lodhi is Professor of Economics and International Development Studies at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada. An Associate Editor of Feminist Economics, his most recent (co-edited) book is Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies (Edward Elgar, 2022).

Rosaleen McDonagh

Visiting scholar practitioner (November 2015)

Rosaleen McDonagh is a writer, playwright and leading feminist in the Traveller community who has been involved in many initiatives on Traveller women’s issues.  She is currently a doctoral candidate at NorthumbriaUniversity, reading for a PhD titled "An Exploration of the Relevance of the Affirmative Model in Relation to Traveller Identity."  Rosaleen earned a BA degree in Theology at Trinity College Dublin, followed by an M.Phil in Ethnic and Racial Studies.  Before embarking on PhD research, she worked in Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre for ten years, managing the Violence against Women programme.  

Vanesa Camacho

Global Women’s Studies and Gender Arc Visiting Researcher (2015-16)

Vanesa Camacho is a Language Assistant in Spanish at the University of Limerick and a visiting researcher associate with the Centre for Global Women’s Studies at University of Galway for the 2015-2016 academic year. Her research interests include post-feminist and queer theory and Beatriz Preciado´s political theory of the body. She is currently working on her PhD, supervised by Dr. Pilar Cuder-Domínguez of Huelva University

Mayesha Alam

Joint Global Women’s Studies & Moore Institutes Visiting Scholar (June-July 2014)

Mayesha Alam is Assistant Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security Washington, DC, and in this role, manages the Institute's various projects. Mayesha co-teaches a graduate seminar on Women, Peace and Security with Ambassador Melanne Verveer in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is the author of Women and Transitional Justice: Progress and Persistent Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Caroline Bettinger-Lopez

Visiting scholar (May 2013)

Caroline Bettinger-López is an Associate Professor of Clinical Legal Education and Director of the Human Rights Clinic at the School of Law, University of Miami. Her scholarship, advocacy, and teaching focus on international human rights law and advocacy including the implementation of human rights norms at the domestic level. Her main regional focus is the US and Latin America, and her principal areas of interest include violence against women, gender and race discrimination, immigrants' rights, and clinical legal education.

Erin Eife

Visiting Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar  (2012-2013)

 I have always been greatly interested in gender and injustices faced by women. This interest led me to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research on women reentering into society after being incarcerated. After graduating from Fairfield University, I was granted this scholarship and subsequently, the opportunity to execute my own research project with the support of the Fulbright Commission and the Centre for Global Women’s Studies at the University of Galway. During my time at the NUIG, I was fortunate enough to be advised by Dr. Niamh Reilly who guided me in my first original research project.  Dr. Reilly also offered the support of the Centre for Global Women’s Studies, wherein I was able to take courses that greatly helped in the formulation and execution of my project. The Centre offered a supportive environment and an engaging intellectual community. Thanks to the support of Dr. Reilly and the Centre for Global Women’s Studies, I was accepted to the University of Chicago, where I received a Master’s degree. I am currently pursuing my Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. As I continue on my academic journey, I will undoubtedly and continually use the skills I learned from my year as a Fulbrighter and as a member of the Centre for Global Women’s Studies

Odette Clarke

Global Women’s Studies and Gender Arc Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher (2011-2012)

Odette Clark’s primary research areas include a gender in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland, gender and emotional management in history and feminist pedagogy. She holds PhD in History from the University of Limerick, as well as a Diploma in Adult Education and a MA in Women’s Studies (also from the University of Limerick).

Rachel Pokora

Visiting Scholar (2010-2011)

Rachel Pokora is a Professor of Communications and Gender Studies at Nebraska Wesleyan University. She holds a PhD in Communications from Purdue University.  Her research areas include: organizational communication, focusing on gender, culture, dialogue, religion, power and authority. While in Galway, Rachel completed work on her book, Crisis of Catholic Authority: Faith and Power in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, which addresses power, authority and structure in the Roman Catholic Church.