PhD Researchers

PhD Researchers

Drama and Theatre Studies at NUI Galway is home to many PhD Researchers who are undertaking research across many vital areas of scholarship. 
Our PhD  students are engaged in a wide variety of projects involving practice-based research, academic research, and archival research. 

Find out more about our researchers below. 

Sarah Hoover

Thesis Title: Presence, Play and Agency: Investigating reflective engagement in larp-led participatory performance
Supervisor: Dr. Miriam Haughton
Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship
Research interests: Agentive participatory performance, presence, liveness, affect in performance, live-action role play, modern and contemporary theatre, devising, experimental theatre, participatory theatre, performance studies, game studies, theatre theory, performance phenomenology, immersive theatre, proximity, audience studies, digital humanities.
Contact:s.hoover1@nuigalway.ie

Christopher McCormack

Thesis Title: Flashes of Modernity: A Historical Analysis of Stage Design at the Abbey Theatre, 1902-1966
Supervisor: Dr. Ian Walsh
Funding Source: Abbey Theatre Digital Archive Fellowship
Research Interests: Scenography, Irish Visual and Material Culture, Theatre Criticism, 20th Century Irish Theatre and Modernism, Gender Studies
Contact: c.mccormack17@nuigalway.ie

Emer McHugh

Thesis Title: Shakespeare, Gender, and Contemporary Ireland: Performing and Recreating Gender, Sexuality, and National Identity
Supervisor: Professor Patrick Lonergan
Funding Source: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship
Research Interests: Early modern performance studies, including the history of Shakespeare in performance and culture; actors and the archive; feminist and queer performance, especially with regards to issues around intersectionality; contemporary Irish and British performance; theatre history and historiography.
Contact: e.mchugh8@nuigalway.ie

Ciara L. Murphy

Thesis Title: 'Feel, witness, comply, act'. Active Spectatorship and the Response to Site in Contemporary Irish Performance Practice.
Supervisor: Dr. Miriam Haughton
Funding: Galway Doctoral Research Scholarship
Research Interests: Contemporary Irish Performance, Contemporary Northern Irish Performance, Site-Specific Performance, Audience Participation, Performance in Public Space, Performance Art, Live Art, Feminism, Gender Studies, Memory.
Contact: c.murphy84@nuigalway.ie

Justine Nakase

 Thesis Title: Performing Scalar Interculturalism: Race and Identity in Contemporary Irish Performance
Supervisor: Dr. Charlotte McIvor
Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship
Research interests: Mixed race and minority ethnic performance, interculturalism, critical race and whiteness studies, theatre and nation, sport and performance, Irish dance theatre
Contact: j.nakase1@nuigalway.ie

Mairead Ní Chronín

Thesis Title: Hybrid Bodies/Haunted Bodies: mobile experiences, affect and theate
Supervisor: Dr. Charlotte McIvor
Funding: Digital Arts & Humanities
Research Interests: affective use of mobile, wearable and pervasive technologies in arts practice; multi-lingual theatre and modes of translation; immersive and interactive performance; theatre by and for young people.

Marina Ní Dhubháin

Thesis title: "Working the DIGITAL Age: Labouring for (the) Real in Oral History based Verbatim"
Supervisor: Prof. Patrick Lonergan.
Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship
Research Interests:  Documentary Theatre, Theatre of the Real, Applied Theatre, Contemporary Playwriting
Contact: m.nidhubhain3@nuigalway.ie

Patricia O'Beirne

Thesis Title: TBD
Supervisor: Dr. Ian R. Walsh
Funding: Abbey Theatre Digital Archive Fellowship
Research Interests: Irish Theatre; Archival Research; Feminist Theatre;1980s Ireland; Early Years Abbey Theatre; Creative Writing; Politics; Digital Arts and Humanities
Contact: p.obeirne2@nuigalway.ie

Finian O' Gorman

Thesis Title: Ireland’s Theatre of Nation: The Amateur Theatre Movement, 1932-1980. 
Supervisor: Prof. Patrick Lonergan 
Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship
Research Interests: Amateur Theatre, Irish Theatre, Postdramatic theatre. 
Contact: f.ogorman3@nuigalway.ie

Rachel Parry

Thesis Title: Danced Narratives of Learning Disabled Lives: New Models of Process and Practice
Supervisor: Dr. Charlotte McIvor
Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship
Research Interests: Learning Disability Dance and Theatre, Postmodern Dance, Judson Dance Theatre, Temporality, Disability Aesthetics
Contact: r.parry2@nuigalway.ie
Website: www.speckledeggdance.ie

Aisling Smith

Thesis Title: Re-directing George Bernard Shaw: Exploring Shaw's Play-Texts for Contemporary Audiences Through Practice as Research
Supervisor: Dr. Ian R. Walsh
Research Interests: Directing, Shavian Studies, Irish Theatre, Political Theatre, Performance Studies, Feminist theory, Brechtian theory
Contact: a.smith@nuigalway.ie

Melinda Szuts

Thesis Title: W.B. Yeats the dramaturge: Space Dramaturgy in Four Plays for Dancers
Supervisor: Prof. Patrick Lonergan
Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship
Research Interests: William Butler Yeats's plays, Irish drama in the twentieth century, Renaissance drama, Shakespeare's plays
Contact: m.szuts1@nuigalway.ie