2016-2021 News

Helen Maher will take up the role of VP Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in January 2022. 

President of NUI Galway, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, said: “Helen Maher comes to NUI Galway with a huge passion for equality, diversity and inclusion. Her career is testament to a life-long commitment to the public good, to partnership and to education as a critical catalyst for equality, diversity and inclusion."

Helen has worked on equality and social justice issues in higher education, civil society organisations and consultancy including with An Cosán, Tallaght; Waterford Women’s Centre; the Inner City Organisations Network in Dublin. She was appointed Vice President at Carlow College, St Patrick’s in 2019, the first woman to hold the post.

She has also served as an International Human Rights Observer in Mexico in the 1990s; is a founder member of Rohingya Action Ireland; and she was lead researcher for a project under the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation on good practice in community based approaches to peacebuilding in the border region of Ireland.

As Vice President at Carlow College, Helen was responsible for developing and leading high level institutional change processes, strategy, collaborative partnerships, stakeholder engagement and EDI. She was the College’s representative on the HEA’s National Committee for Gender Equality, the Athena Swan National Committee.

Helen holds a BA degree from UCD, an MA in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford and is completing her PhD thesis at the School of Law and Government, DCU.

Her research to date has examined the tension between feminism and nationalism; gender, democratisation and post-conflict reconstruction; higher education, civic engagement and collaborative partnerships and community responses to peacebuilding. Her current research focuses on gender equality and the transition to democracy in South Africa.

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