Postgraduate Research

We have a lively Environmental Humanities postgraduate research community at UCD. Below is a sample of some of the cutting-edge research being undertaken by our doctoral researchers. We welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students. Please browse our list of staff and contact the supervisor whose research interests align most closely with your proposal, or speak to our director, Dr Sharae Deckard.

Vasily Borovoy

Vasily Borovoy is a PhD student in the School of History at UCD. He was trained as a historian in Russia. He obtained his BA and MA in History at the Northern (Arctic) Federal University in Arkhangelsk and European University at Saint-Petersburg respectively, and has worked as a junior researcher at the Centre of Historical Research at Higher School of Economics, Saint-Petersburg. He began his PhD project, ‘Governing regions of Empire: resource regimes in the European North of late imperial and Soviet Russia’, in 2020. It examines the ways in which the north-western region of Russia was governed through its natural resources and emerged as a resource frontier c. 1890-1930. He employs approaches of environmental, economic, global and New Imperial History to follow the quest of commercial actors, local communities, and the state officials for allocation and utilisation of such resources as timber and furs, fish and seaweed, energy sources, and agricultural land in the north. His study shows how conceptualisations of resources as scarce or abundant by historical actors helped construct these natural resources and the region that provided access to them.

Poulomi Choudhury

Poulomi Choudhury is a doctoral student in the School of English, Drama and Film at UCD. Her research explores depictions of meat in dystopian literature within the context of contemporary food systems and the climate crisis. Her study was awarded the UCD College of Arts and Humanities Doctoral Fee Scholarship. Poulomi holds a BA in English Literature (2009) and was awarded the Government of Ireland Scholarship to complete her MPhil in Popular Literature at Trinity College Dublin (2013-14). She holds another Masters in Cultural Studies (2019-20). Poulomi’s research interests include food studies, critical animal studies, vegan studies, gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, and critical race theory.

Caleb O’Connor

Caleb O’Connor is an Ad Astra PhD student in the School of English, Drama and Film at UCD, researching the intersection between critical food studies, queer theory, and world literature. His doctoral research examines ecopoetry from global indigiqueer (indigenous and queer) communities, and the ways in which these communities imagine non-capitalist food cultures and systems in the wake of global agribusiness. He also works at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) and volunteers with Qéire, a lateral queer collective focused on disseminating queer theory outside of the academy.

Bernadette Fox

Bernadette Fox is a PhD candidate in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin. Her thesis, provisionally titled ‘Adrift on the Sea in Beckett’s Prose: An Ecocritical Reading for the Anthropocene’, reads the works of Samuel Beckett through a personal lens. Bernadette’s research is embedded in close readings of Beckett’s seascapes, informed by a blending of practical nautical knowledge and familiarity with the locale of Beckett’s youth (Dublin/Ireland). She holds a BA International in English from UCD (2015) and an MPhil in Irish Writing in English from Trinity College Dublin (2016).

Rosanne Gallenne

Rosanne Gallenne is an IRC Scholar who completed her BA in Foreign and Regional Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the Catholic University of the West (France) and her MA at UCD. Located at the intersection of ecofeminist and affective studies, her thesis explores mid-twentieth century and contemporary Irish women poets’ re-writing of the trope of the garden. She is also conducting a comparative study of French and Irish women poets’ responses to twentieth-century conflicts for which she was awarded the 2021 Reverend Liam Swords Bursary.

Deborah Schrijvers

Deborah Schrijvers is an Ad Astra PhD scholar in the School of English, Drama and Film at UCD. She holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam, a BA in Literatures in English and Literary Theory from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and a Research MA degree in Literary Studies from Leiden University. Her research focuses on decolonizing extinction, paying special attention to gender and race through analyses of contemporary, transnational literature, film and art. Her research interests include: critical animal studies, vegan studies, gender and sexuality studies, critical race theory and black studies.

Dee Steve

Dee has a BA(Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing from Lancaster University and an MA in Literature and Culture from UCD. For their current research they are working on a poetry collection that aims to bridge Trans Poetics and Trans Ecologies while writing about an environmental Apocalypse. Their poems have been published on SCAN Lancaster, The Honest Ulsterman, and Abridged.