Photograph of Erin Early

Erin Early is a Lecturer in Social Policy at Ulster University. She previously held Research Fellow positions at University College London and Queen’s University Belfast. Erin’s research interests are centred around secondary data analysis and social inequalities, particularly in education, health and the family.

image of Nora Poloni-Gallagher

Nora Poloni-Gallagher joined the ARK team as a Research Associate. She will start her PhD at Queen's University in September 2022 researching algorithmic regulations in the public sphere. Nora is an early career lecturer at Ulster University at the School of Applied Social and Policy Studies. Her research interests include gender equality and social policy.

Photograph of Alexandra Chapman

Alexandra Chapman is ARK Policy Director, and is a lecturer at Ulster University, School of Applied Social and Policy Studies. Her research interests are in the area of adult social care, childcare and family policy. 

Her PhD on adult social care was supported by the ARK Ageing Programme. Her work has been published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, Journal of Integrated Care and Health and Social Care in the Community.

Photograph of Sinead Grant

Sinéad currently works as part of the ARK team, and is based at Ulster University.  She works closely with:

  • INCORE (International Conflict Research Institute)
  • CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet), 
  • Conflict Textiles (An associate project of INCORE)
  • Dr Nigel Glenny (Site Director for Augsburg CGEE NI).

Sinéad studied at the Ulster University where she graduated with a BA Hons degree in Business Studies has been employed by the University since 2004 .

 

Nicholas Whyte
Photograph of Adrian Grant

Adrian Grant is a Lecturer in Politics at Ulster University and is currently the CAIN Transformation Project Lead. His current research focuses on the everyday experience of conflict and division in urban settings. Much of his work focuses on the conflict in, and about, Northern Ireland. He has worked extensively in research on the legacy of conflict, particularly on the role of oral history and urban policy in addressing division.

Photo of Ann Marie Gray

Ann Marie Gray is Co-Director of ARK, and Professor of Social Policy in Ulster University. Her research interests are in the area of health and social care policy, policy making in Northern Ireland, gender and social policy and social attitudes.

PHotograph of Goretti Horgan

Goretti Horgan is a senior lecturer in Social Policy at Ulster University. Her research interests are child rights and women’s rights, especially child poverty, welfare reform and poverty among disabled people.

Gillian Robinson

Gillian Robinson is Emeritus Professor of Social Research and ARK Associate at Ulster University. Based in the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, Gillian worked with colleagues to establish ARK as a cross-university resource (with Queen’s University Belfast) providing access to social and political information on Northern Ireland in 2000.  She has been involved in the monitoring of social attitudes in Northern Ireland since 1989 and was co-director of the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey series. She led the ARK Ageing Programme at Ulster University.

Gillian co-ordinated the Accounts of the Conflict project www.ulster.ac.uk/accounts, a digital archive of personal accounts of the conflict in and about Northern Ireland. This archive is a valuable new addition to the CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet www.cain.ulster.ac.uk) web resource. Gillian worked closely with INCORE (International Conflict Research Institute www.ulster.ac.uk/incore) where she was Director 2003-2008.

Her research interests include peace monitoring, social attitudes, gender roles, policy development in transition and research methodology including issues around researching violent societies and comparative methods.  She has published extensively on these issues and has led teams that have developed over 40 online publicly accessible databases. She is the 2003 Eisenhower Fellow from Northern Ireland.

Photograph of Mike McCool

Mike began his career at Ulster University in 1990 as a Research Assistant on the Ulysses Project at Magee, a role he held until 1993 following the completion of his first degree at the age of 31.

He later joined the Faculty of Engineering as a Computer Officer and was subsequently seconded to the Interactive Systems Centre (ISC) from 1993 to 1997. During this time, he served as a Research Officer and ICT Manager on the TALENT Project, also based at Magee.

In 1997, Mike was seconded to INCORE/ARK, where he worked until 2007. At that point, he transitioned into a permanent role as ICT Manager.

Over the years, he has contributed to several publications and undertaken a wide range of responsibilities, including system administration (Unix), database administration, website design and development, graphic and multimedia design, audio/visual production, systems programming, and providing technical support to colleagues.

Currently, Mike is actively involved in several projects for ACCOUNTS of the CONFLICT,  INCORE, ARK, and CAIN, bringing his expertise to a variety of initiatives.