Professor Nuala Finnegan
Biography
Nuala Finnegan is Professor in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies. She has been Head of Department twice (2008-2013; 2017-2021) and has led major expansion of the discipline and its curricular offerings. She was Head of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures (2013-2016) overseeing key programme changes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels as well as the establishment of the Centre for Advanced Study in Languages and Cultures (CASiLaC). She is a member of UCC’s Governing Body and has chaired and participated in numerous committees at Departmental, School, College, and University level including in the area of internationalisation and EDI, chairing UCC’s Equality Committee since 2017. For over a decade, her research has focused on gender violence in the Americas specialising in cultural responses to femicidal violence along the Mexico-US border. This research has generated a monograph, journal articles, keynote lectures in US, Mexico and Europe, book chapters, PhD projects, documentary film as well as multiple public, outreach, and community engagement events. Active on the Executive of the Society for Irish Latin American Studies, she leads on initiatives around knowledge transfer between Ireland and Latin America. Examples of this include a bilingual book collection with IRC CAROLINE fellow, Margaret Brehony, Ireland and Cuba: Entangled Histories, published in Havana (2020), and her leadership of a North-South interdisciplinary project (with the University of Ulster) exploring how art practice and feminist epistemologies from Latin America can shape conversations about gender, identity and the constitutional future on this island. As Director of the Centre for Mexican Studies, she has prioritised multi-disciplinary collaboration and community engagement. She has extensive experience of exhibition curation and co-ordination including Entre Mundos/Between Worlds: Images of Life between Mexico and Ireland first shown in 2019, in preparation for re-exhibition in 2023. In 2011, she received an OHTLI award from the Government of Mexico, a distinction conferred on individuals whose work has enhanced the integration and empowerment of the Mexican diaspora. A recipient of the Research Supervisor Award in 2018, she is currently collaborating with 8 PhD researchers, and has led numerous programme development teams, most recently the successful Higher Diploma in Spanish for Teachers funded by the Department of Education and Skills for three cycles (2021-2025). She received a Leadership Award from UCC in 2022.