The project is led by Dr Karen Keaveney, UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science. Co-PI is Assoc. Prof. Ainhoa Gonzalez Del Campo, UCD School of Geography. The Post-Doctoral Researcher is Dr Adwoa Serwaa Ofori, based in the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science.
Research Team
Lead Principal Investigator
Dr. Karen Keaveney is an Assistant Professor and Head of Subject for Rural Development in the School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Ireland. She is a Rural Geographer and qualified Urban Planner, with expertise in rurality, rural change, and living in the countryside. Dr. Keaveney is a qualified Urban and Regional Planner (UCD) with an undergraduate degree in Geography (NUI Galway) and a PhD in Geography (MU). Her publications and research include the areas of policy responses to rural change, cross-border and inter-jurisdictional planning, local government reform, and planning on the island of Ireland. Prior to joining UCD, Dr. Keaveney was a Lecturer in Rural Spatial Planning in the Institute of Spatial and Environmental Planning (ISEP) in the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast (2005 – 2012). While at QUB, she has held two visiting appointments internationally: Visiting Research Fellow in the Joint Centre for Housing Studies, Harvard University, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Toronto. Dr. Keaveney has been a co-investigator on a number of national and European projects.
Co-Principal Investigator
Professor Ainhoa González (PhD, BScAg, MScERM, HDipEnvEng), has over 20 years of international experience as an environmental planner and spatial data manager, and as a researcher and educator in environmental assessment and in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). She is Associate Professor in the School of Geography, University College Dublin, and the programme director of the MSc in Geospatial Data Analysis. She is a board member of the Ordnance Survey Ireland, the International Association for Impact Assessment UK-Ireland branch, and the Spanish Association for Impact Assessment. Ainhoa has led the development of the national Environmental Sensitivity Mapping tool hosted by the Ordnance Survey’s Geohive (www.enviromap.ie) and maintains a spatial data inventory for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (https://www.epa.ie/pubs/advice/ea/seaspatialinformationsourcesinventory.html). She is a board member of the International Association for Impact Assessment UK-Ireland branch, of the Spanish Association for Impact Assessment, and of UCD’s Earth Institute. Ainhoa has written over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. She has also published several environmental assessment and GIS guidance manuals for the EPA.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Adwoa Serwaa Ofori’s research background is in African development, focusing on land and rural livelihoods. Her PhD in Geography is from Trinity College Dublin. Her research was entitled ‘The Land of the Chiefs and the Land of the State: What happens after an acquisition in Ghana?’ and comparatively examined the livelihood implications of large-scale land acquisitions within and across rural communities as well as the impacts to the adjacent locality using Ghana as a case study. She also has Masters’ degrees in Water and Environmental Management (Loughborough University UK) and Project Management (the University of Greenwich UK). Her research interests include sustainability, community engagement and rural livelihoods.
