People
OUR PEOPLE
Annie Armstrong is the Colin Neighbourhood Partnership Manager. She is focused on building strong relationships between communities, local authorities, and partners. She leads collaborative initiatives that improve neighbourhood wellbeing, supports resident engagement, and delivers place-based solutions that strengthen community resilience and long-term social impact.
Dr Laura Dunne is a Chartered Psychologist and a Reader at the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW), Queen’s University Belfast. Laura’s research interests lie in three main areas; child wellbeing in educational settings, early child health and development, and programme evaluation with a particular interest in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs).
She has extensive experience conducting both quantitative and qualitative research and is particularly interested in national and international engagement and advocacy. Laura is Research Impact and Public Engagement Champion for SSESW.
Dr Karen Galway (School of Nursing and Midwifery) is co-chair of the Suicide Prevention Research and Impact Network (SPRIN). She carries out public mental health research that explores how best to improve everyone’s mental health, through effective and accessible support and services.
Dr Galway has also worked to improve psychological and psycho-social support in cancer care, and is interested in research that empowers people through the use of digital technologies and co-design.
Dr Aideen Gildea (SSESW) has a professional background in special community public health nursing and an interdisciplinary academic background spanning health, social sciences and educational research.
She has completed numerous evaluations of school-based programmes using a range of methodologies, and in particular, am experienced in the design, management, analysis and reporting of qualitative methods; specifically process evaluations that are designed to run alongside randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in school settings.
Dr Gildea's work over the last decade has involved undertaking high quality quantitative and qualitative research on a range of RCT’s, in community and educational settings in Ireland and the UK.
Jenny Haslett is Education Manager at National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI), leading museum learning and engagement programmes that connect collections with schools and communities. Based in the Belfast area, she plays a key role in developing inclusive educational resources and partnerships that enhance cultural and historical understanding. is collaborating on the Innovation Zones 'Conflict and Creativity' work with National Museums NI.
Christina Laurenzi is an Associate Professor of Global Health, based at the Institute for Life Course Health Research, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She is a qualitative social scientist with research expertise in child and adolescent wellbeing, community school-based support, and participatory methodologies. While most of her work centres on generating evidence to support children, adolescents, and families in low-resource settings, she has also supported global guidelines and technical brief development with the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
She currently serves as a Vice Chair of Stellenbosch University’s Research Ethics Committee and is passionate about capacity-sharing, mentorship, and cross-sector collaboration. Christina is co-leading an adaptation of the Conversations model - first conducted in Belfast - with children, adolescents, and youth ages 6-24 in peri-urban Khayelitsha, South Africa.
Tatenda Mawoyo is a qualified Social Worker with a Master’s degree in Social Policy and Management. Since April 2020, he has been working as a Junior Researcher at the Institute for Life Course Research (ILCHR) at Stellenbosch University. His research interests include adolescent mental health, parenting, and sexual and reproductive health. Additionally, he is a registered PhD candidate, focusing on how school climate influences adolescent mental health.
Dr Julie McMullan is a Research Fellow in the School of Nursing and Midwifery. Julie has a background in public health research and has worked on various projects at Queen’s University Belfast since completing her PhD 6 years ago.
Much of Julie’s research to date has used qualitative methods and she particularly enjoys working alongside PPI groups to discover how research makes a real difference to individuals.
Most recently Julie has joined the Common Health Assets project which focuses on how community led organisations impact on the health and wellbeing of people living in deprived areas.
Professor Sarah Miller's research revolves around three inter-related themes: social emotional development, academic attainment and programme evaluation. She is particularly interested in the development of prosocial behaviour in early childhood and primary school children, as well as literacy and numeracy progression more generally.
Prof Miller (SSESW) has designed, conducted and published over 25 large-scale studies, which have included: simple and cluster randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews, quasi-experimental evaluations and cross sectional surveys.
Most recently she was involved in leading three systematic reviews on improving outcomes for people experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness.
Dr Jill Mulholland is a qualified nurse who is undertaking an interdisciplinary PhD across the School of Nursing and Midwifery and School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, which is contributing valuable information to the work of Queen’s Innovation Zones.
Jill’s PhD is entitled Referral Routes to Community Support: exploring the impact of social prescribing. It aims to explore and assess the impact of referral mechanisms involved in connecting people to community-based support. Jill’s research is part of the NIHR funded Common Health Assets programme which will examine how community led organisations impact the health and wellbeing of people in disadvantaged areas across the UK.
Dr Leeanne O'Hara is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences at Queen's.
She has published research a range of public health issues, such as the use of prescription drugs in prisons in Northern Ireland, and a public health approach to novel psychoactive substances.
Professor Purdue works on the social history of Ireland with a focus on urban poverty, welfare and social class. She also works on contested and difficult public histories. Recent books include Urban Spaces in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (2018), Children, Poverty and the Poor Law in Industrial Belfast (2024) and Public History in Ireland: Difficult Histories (2024).
She was international editor for The Public Historian and is series editor for Routledge’s Global Perspectives in Public History series. Professor Purdue is collaborating on the Innovation Zones 'Conflict and Creativity' work with National Museums NI.
Jackie Redpath is Joint CEO of the Greater Shankill Partnership. He is a dedicated community development practitioner, supporting regeneration, employability and social inclusion. With extensive experience working alongside residents, Jackie builds collaborative programmes that strengthen local capacity, improve opportunities, and promote positive, sustainable change across the Greater Shankill area through partnership, leadership, and evidence-led practice.
Isa Sprethuber is a AHRC CDP PhD researcher with Queen’s University Belfast and National Museums Northern Ireland. This collaboration between the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work and the Ulster Museum focuses on the connection between conflict and creativity and evaluates the potential of the museum’s Troubles and Beyond collection in fostering creative thinking skills for young people from across different religious, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds from non-integrated schools.
Research activity will include the implementation of a pilot study in communities linked to the ‘Innovation Zones’, which will be evaluated to assess its effectiveness in developing creative skills and open-mindedness in the young participants from disadvantaged backgrounds. The findings of the research will contribute to the development of the Ulster Museum’s Troubles-related education programmes.
She is being supervised by Liam O'Hare (SSESW) and Jenny Haslett (NMNI).
Junyi Wang is undertaking an interdisciplinary PhD across the School of Social Sciences Education and Social Work and School of Arts, English and Languages, where she is being supervised by Dr Liam O’Hare (SSESW) and Dr Franziska Schroeder (AEL).
Junyi’s project aims to explore and assess if the Crescendo music and social learning programme supported by Queen’s Innovation Zones can be translated into a Chinese context.