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Mairéad de Róiste is a senior lecturer in Geographic Information Science (GIS) at Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.  She is visiting UCD as Visiting Senior Research Fellow until June.  She completed her PhD in Geography and a postgraduate diploma in Statistics at Trinity College Dublin and a Masters in GIS at the University of Leicester.  She has substantive research interests into 1. how people use and understand geographic information and systems incorporating usability, geovisualization, and public participation GIS and 2. understanding GIS pedagogy and capability building.  Current research projects include: using virtual reality  (VR) to model wetlands and support identity building with Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa (a New Zealand tribe); modelling social and cultural values for ecosystem service (ES) approaches (using LUCI); exploring the influence of visualization methods on ES informed decision making; modelling residential and transport decisions in the Greater Wellington Region; establishing usability methods for online maps, and exploring graduate pathways and barriers to the GIS industry.