Keynote Addresses

In line with past Lesbian Lives conferences, we are organising a diverse programme of speakers for Lesbian Lives 2026. Additional speaker information will be posted here shortly but in the meantime please see below for our programme of keynote address and speakers this year.

Aoife Neary

Aoife Neary (BSc, MA, PhD) is Lecturer in the School of Education, University College Cork (UCC). She joined UCC in 2024, following ten years in the School of Education, University of Limerick, including as Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Education and Associate Dean Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Her research primarily explores LGBTQ+ lives in education contexts. Her current research, CLEAR: Children's LGBTQ+ Equality and Rights is funded by the Ombudsman for Children Office and is in partnership with Belong To LGBTQ Youth Ireland. In 2025, she was appointed as Associate Editor of the journal Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning. She has contributed to national curriculum development as a member of two National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) development groups, and since 2014 she has been leading and teaching teacher education modules that explore issues of social justice from a socio-cultural perspective. 

Karen Washington

Karen Washington lived in New York City for the first 65 years of her life, and has spent decades promoting urban farming as a way for all New Yorkers to access to fresh, locally grown food.

Karen was a resident of the Bronx for over 26 years, and in 2015 she began living part time in Orange County, NY near the farm. Since 1985 Karen has been a community activist, striving to make New York City a better place to live. As a community gardener and board member of the New York Botanical Gardens, Karen worked with Bronx neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens. As an advocate, she stood up and spoken out for garden protection and preservation. As a member of the La Familia Verde Community Garden Coalition, she helped launched a City Farms Market, bringing garden fresh vegetables to her neighbors.  She also co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an organization of volunteers committed to building networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings. In 2012 Ebony magazine voted her one of their 100 most influential African Americans in the country, and in 2014 she was awarded with the James Beard Leadership Award.

Professionally Karen was a Physical Therapist for over 30 years, and she "retired" in April 2014 to start Rise & Root Farm. 

Lisa Fingleton

Lisa Fingleton is an artist,  writer and grower who has spent over twenty years cultivating deep-rooted connections between art, food and farming. Her projects incorporate socially engaged, collaborative and connections between art, food and farming. Her projects incorporate socially engaged, collaborative and performative process; participatory moving image; large scale drawing installations; as well as creative and autobiographical writing. Grounded on a nineteen acre organic farm and woodlands  on the west coast of Ireland, she and her partner Rena Blake run an eco social arts project called "The Barna Way". From here they engage with the diverse community groups through social farming and live food and cultural events, while protecting habitats for wildlife. This project is propelled by an accelerated sense of urgency around food insecurity, the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and forced migration. Lisa is currently the Kerry Visual Artist in Residence and the embedded artist with "Brilliant Ballybunion", a Creative Climate Action Project managed by Creative Ireland. Brilliant Ballybunion supports the community to be creative, grow food and protect biodiversity, all at the same time. The project was recently showcased at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Her book "The Local Food Project" explores the power of growing and eating local food in the context of climate change and biodiversity loss. Lisa has MA in documentary film (Goldsmiths College, London) and a degree in Fine Art (NCAD). Her work is in the National and State collections of Ireland.

Rena Blake

Rena was the co-founder of the The Rising Café in Park Slope and now runs The Barna Way, a biodiversity and creativity hub in Ballybunion, Co. Kerry on the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland. As a photographer she is particularly in interested in wildlife and social documentary photography. She is one of the lead partners and photographer with "Brilliant Ballybunion", a creative climate action project supported by Creative Ireland.

Conference closing and final plenary

How do we name and resist the challenges? How do we name and bring forth our joys?

In this final panel of the conference panel members will name the challenge/s that they are most engaged with and the strategies they use to grapple with the difficulties. We will end with a discussion where the panellists name their joys and what and brings forth and sustains these joys.

Ilaria Todde Advocacy and Research Director (“Dykerector”) at EL*C – EuroCentralAsian Lesbian Community. 
 
Grace En-yi Ting is an assistant professor of gender studies at the University of Hong Kong
 
Melissa Mora Hidalgo, Ph. D., is a writer and scholar based in greater East Los Angeles. Lecturer at Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach. 
 
Sambhavi Varadarajan (they/them) PhD. student at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Previously a Teaching Fellow of the social sciences at Krea University, India. They have worked on projects on climate migration, anti-trans violence, and queer collectivity.
 
Amy Hassett, Ph.D, is a science communicator, broadcaster and disability rights advocate from Ireland. Amy is currently co-director of Disabled Women Ireland (DWI) and uses her experiences in disability advocacy and science communication to build communities where people feel valued, curious and empowered to engage with the world. 

Katherine O’Donnell is Professor of the History of Ideas in the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin. She has been a central organiser of Lesbian Lives since 1997. She is the author of the novel, Slant.