PhD Candidates

Marion Bartl

Thesis Title: Fair NLP: Mitigating bias and discrimination in datasets and machine learning models for natural language processing.

Email: marion.bartl@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Susan Leavy

Faye Carrie (they/them)

Thesis Title: An Examination of how the Information Behaviour of Non-Binary and Genderqueer People shapes their Lived Experience.

Email: faye.carrie@ucdconnect.ie 
Supervisor(s): (opens in a new window)Assoc Prof Crystal Fulton and (opens in a new window)Assistant Professor Claire McGuinness

Jan Elfes

Thesis Title:  Linking the spread of online propaganda to the offline world 

Email: jan.elfes@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr. Marco Bastos 

Megan Fahy
 
Thesis Title: Fostering Digital Social Capital through Design for Wellbeing.

Email: megan.fahy@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Assoc Prof Marguerite Barry

Romeo Fraccari (he/him)

Thesis Title: Streaming and Producing Trans Lives: Modalities of Trans Representation Across Streaming Platforms (2014–2024).

Email: romeo.fraccari@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Páraic Kerrigan

Sebastião Freire

Thesis Title: The role the production of subjectivities plays in the political economy of digital media

Email: sebastiao.freire@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr James Steinhoff and (opens in a new window)P(opens in a new window)rofessor Eugenia(opens in a new window) Siapera

Zaur Gouliev

Thesis Title: Disinformation linked to Foreign Information Manipulation and Interferance (FIMI)

Email: zaur.gouliev@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Brendan Spillane and (opens in a new window)P(opens in a new window)rofessor Eugenia(opens in a new window) Siapera

Jean Itangayenda

Thesis Title: Peer-to-peer financial transactions in Rwanda.

Email: jean.itangayenda@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Professor Kalpana Shankar

Jet Klokgieters

Thesis Title: Theorising digital poverty interventions: Policy responses to exclusions from the digital transformation

Email: jet.klokgieters@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Elizabeth Farr(opens in a new window)ies

Xinna Li (She/her)

Kayley Moylan

Thesis Title: Digital Technology Design for Creative Emotional Expression at the Intersection of HCI and Art Therapy

Email: kayley.moylan@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Assoc Prof Marguerite Barry and (opens in a new window)Dr Kevin Doherty

Dylan Murphy

Thesis Title: Data Landfills.

Email: dylan.murphy2@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Prof(opens in a new window)essor Kalpana Shankar and (opens in a new window)Dr Patrick Brodie

Megan Nyhan

Thesis Title: Ethical Recommendation Algorithms: Developing an ethical framework and design principles for trustworthy AI recommender systems

Email: megan.nyhan@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)D(opens in a new window)r Susan Leavy 

Aisha Nazim

Thesis Title: (In)visibility/Queer Muslims in South Asia/Digital spaces.

Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Elizabeth Farr(opens in a new window)ies

Marie O’Neill

Thesis Title: The Visible Library Publisher: The Strategic Positioning of Academic Library Publishing in the Irish Scholarly Communications Landscape.

Email: marie.oneill@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Lai Ma

Giulia Osti (she/her)
 



Thesis Title: Customising AI for Digital Curation Work that Utilises Controlled Vocabularies
.


Email: giulia.osti@ucdconnect.ie

Supervisors: (opens in a new window)Associate Professor Amber Cushing, UCD, and Assoc Prof Suzanne Little (DCU) 

Paola Peña (she/her)

Thesis title: The division of labour in human-machine communication: Exploring the allocation of perspective-taking resources.



Email: paola.pena@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisors: (opens in a new window)Professor Benjamin Cowan and Dr. Rachel McDonnell 

Yunhan Wu

Thesis Title: Second language speakers’ interactions with speech interfaces.

Email: Yunhan.wu@ucdconnect.ie

Supervisor(s): (opens in a new window)Professor Benjamin Cowan

Jennifer Waters

Thesis Title: Legal Analytics

Email: jennifer.waters@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Elizabeth Farries

Kate Walsh

Thesis Title: Disinformation / Deepfakes / Election interference

Email: kate.walsh@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Professor Benjamin Cowan and (opens in a new window)Dr Brendan Spillane

Yifei Yang 

Thesis Title: The Nisu Fandom's Feminist Ethnography of Contemporary China: Gaze, Agency and Cultural Participation

Email: yifei.yang@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Professor Eugenia Siapera and (opens in a new window)Dr Páraic Kerrigan

Hanxiao Zhang

Thesis Title: Social Media Influencing and Creative Labour in Rural China: A Study of Contemporary Micro celebrity on Chinese Social Media 

Email: hanxiao.zhang@ucdconnect.ie
Supervisor: (opens in a new window)Dr Páraic Kerrigan