Martha Phelan
A double graduate of University College Cork, Martha Phelan is a member of the Research Support team at the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation at UCC. Her academic experience is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary comprising of a PgDip., B.Sc., B.A., and currently reading for a M.Ed. at University of Dublin, Trinity College.
Equipped with language skills and excellent interpersonal skills gleaned from summers working abroad at Disneyland Paris (FR) and Guesthouses (DE), Martha began her graduate career in the hospitality sector as an assistant hotel manager at The Grand Hotel, Tralee (IRL) where she honed valuable customer relationship management skills.
Martha joined Dell EMC (IRL) (formerly EMC2) as a Customer Service Technical Administrator in a Call Centre Environment for five years. Exposure to global business, project management and research ignited her interest to pursue further education and concomitantly gained practical hands-on- experience in different research environments. Subsequently, she was employed as a researcher (specified-purpose contract) by a community not-for-profit organisation at Dunhill Rural Enterprises Ltd., (IRL) which subsequently led her to Higher Education at South East Technological University (IRL) (formerly Waterford Institute of Technology) where she took up a position as a Project Coordinator (IRL) for a EU Interreg Ireland - Wales project.
Since joining UCC in 2012, Martha has accumulated specialist knowledge, skills and competencies required for working at a higher education institution, 6 years specifically, in research focussed environments. This nonlinear career path has afforded the honing of transversal skills: critical and innovative thinking, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, global citizenship, media and information literacy, as well as project management. Martha enjoys getting involved in extracurricular activities such as the UCC Staff Book Club and UCC Praxis: Global Citizenship and Development Education. A native of County Waterford, and now living in north County Cork, she farms part-time, and has travelled around Europe, North America, Canada & Newfoundland, and South Africa. A practitioner of lifelong learning, and proponent of UCC values of Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, and Sustainability, Martha aims to continue to learn about other cultures, gain experiences and explore new environments.
Current Role
I perform duties associated with the administration of national, European, and international pre and post award funding processes, and additional duties beyond the scope of the role remit. Research Support Administration is streamlined into two processes:
- Pre-award support to PIs, and the Research Officers team in funding proposal development, institutional sign-off, and submission of eligible applications.
- Post-ward support to PIs, and the Research Contracts Officers team in the coordination and management of the post award administrative process from the funding offer stage through to contract execution, research account set-up, and project start-up.
Research interests
Research interests include educational research, research management and administration, global citizenship and development education, educational philosophy, educational psychology (interpretative phenomenology analysis), partnerships & collaborations, and transdisciplinary research.
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