Paul Connolly BSocSc, MA, MSc, PhD

Paul Connolly is Professor of Education at Queen’s University Belfast and also Director of the NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) at Queen’s Centre for Educational Research.

His main research interests are concerned with understanding children’s experiences and perspectives and particularly the ways in which factors such as race, ethnicity, gender and social class influence their attitudes and identities.

Paul is the author of a number of books including:

• Racism, Gender Identities and Young Children (Routledge, 1998);
• Too Young to Notice?: The Cultural and Political Awareness of 3-6 Year Olds in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Community Relations Council, 2002);
• Boys and Schooling in the Early Years (Routledge, 2004); and
• From Conflict to Peace Building: The Power of Early Childhood Initiatives – Lessons from Around the World (2007, World Forum Foundation) .

Further details on Paul’s work can be found on his website at: www.paulconnolly.net

Orla Muldoon, RGN, BSSc, PhD, PGCUT, CPsychol

Orla Muldoon is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland. In August 2007, she will take up the Inaugural Chair of Psychology at the University of Limerick to oversee the development of Ireland's first department of social psychology.

Orla obtained a first class honours degree in Psychology in 1993 and a PhD in Psychology in 1996. Following the award of a John F. Kennedy Scholarship in 1996 she attended a graduate programme in research methods and statistics at University of Michigan.

Since that time, Orla has conducted research on the causes and consequences of political violence in terms of both mental health and social and political attitudes. She has a particular interest in the effects of social divisions on the development of social identities and the limiting effect of violence and divisions on the development of inclusive and multiple identities. Most recently she has been attempting to bring these interests together by examining the relationship between political violence, social identity and well-being.

She is widely published in international peer reviewed journals, and is the lead investigator on a number of large scale funded research projects details of which can be found on the Queen's University website. She is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and is a member of the Governing Council of the International Society of Political Psychology.