Shows
EPISTEM PODCASTEPI∙STEM PODCAST EPISODE 24In the EPI·STEM PODCAST episode 24, Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Dr Jeff Buckley, Lecturer in the Department of Technology Education at the Technological University of the Shannon. Dr Buckley teaches research methods in engineering education to postgraduate students. Aformer alumni of the University of Limerick Jeff completed his PhD and postdoctoral research in a university in Sweden and in an engineering department.Dr Buckley introduces his current role as Series Editor of a newSpringer Nature series of book publications entitled ‘Emergent Discussions in Engineering Education’. The Springer book series is designed to be of su...
2025-10-2435 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPISTEM PODCAST EPISODE 23In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Associate Professor Audrey O’Grady as their special guest. Associate Professor O’Grady is a Lecturer in Biological Sciences with a research specialism in entomology [study of insects] in the Faculty of Science & Engineering at the University of Limerick. Audrey is an EPI·STEM affiliate where she is a member of our PhD supervision team for our next generation of Science and STEMeducators.Here Associate Professor Audrey O’Grady shares her passionfor teaching science in higher education and her research and public en...
2025-10-1329 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 23In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Associate Professor Audrey O’Grady as their special guest. Associate Professor O’Grady is a Lecturer in the Life Sciences with a research specialism in etymology [study of insects] in the Faculty of Science & Engineering at the University of Limerick. Audrey is an EPI·STEM affiliate where she is a member of our PhD supervision team for our next generation of Science and STEM educators.Here, Associate Professor Audrey O’Grady shares her passionfor teaching science in higher education and her research...
2025-10-1327 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 22In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 22, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD reflect on the newacademic year ahead and the emphasis in the podcast to date of a rich variety of voices connected to STEM and STEAM Education, including researchers, teachers and partners. Here, Geraldine and Michelle discuss the research study Geraldine completed for the European Commission, a scoping study on education and skills that was published in recent weeks (https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/education-and-skills-social-transformations-and-resilience_en). The study is a philosophical critique of education and skills with an emphasison a futures orientation for a fa...
2025-10-0629 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 21In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 21, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD reflect on the variety of voices in the podcasts to date. They then continue where they left off in Episode 7 in relation to selecting and justifying a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to doctoral studies in STEM and STEAM Education.Michelle Starr PhD shares her research specialism in the criticalsociology of the French intellectual Pierre Bourdieu and shows how thinking with the big ideas and concepts of Bourdieu offers a powerful explanatory framework for education research studies framed as cultural problems. Michellespeaks to...
2025-07-0336 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 20In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 20, co- hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Associate Professor Diarmaid Lane as the special guest. Diarmaid is a Lecturer in Technology Education in the School of Education and an EPI•STEM Affiliate at UL.Associate Professor Diarmaid Lane shares his personal story of his route into teacher education and research in Technology and STEM teacher education in the University of Limerick. He shows how his continuing reflexive learning ismaking a difference to the pedagogical approaches he espouses with his students and colleagues. Associate Professor Diarmad Lane shares his recent...
2025-06-1237 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 19In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 19, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Professor Sara Tolbert from Monash University in Melbourne Australia. Professor Tolbert was recently appointed as a Professor of STEM Education and alongside colleagues leads out the new SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE ANTHROPOCENE IMPACT LAB. The impact lab is designed to reimagine our relationship with the natural world. Previously, Professor Tolbert was the Professor of Science Education at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.The Science Education Impact Lab positions Science Education today as being at the intersection of nature, culture and society. This th...
2025-06-0340 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 18In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 18,co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome guests from theLimerick city post-primary school, Coláiste Nano Nagle – Conor Bourke, the chemistry and biology teacher and two second year students, Marina Alphonsa and Areej Elgenaidi.The students and their teacher recount the deep learning in STEAM education they experienced from participating in theproject entitled DESIGN A SUSTAINABLE VILLAGE IN IRELAND IN 2050. The project was offered to schools in Limerick as a pilot partnership between EPI•STEM at the University of Limerick, the HUNT Museum and the Limerick Education Support Centre. He...
2025-05-2630 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 17In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 17, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome guests from theLimerick post-primary school, Thomond Community College – Shaun Donegan, the engineering teacher and Transition Year students, Patrick Rwasibo and Josh Cronin.The students and their teacher recount the deep learning in STEAM education they experienced from participating in theproject entitled DESIGN A SUSTAINABLE VILLAGE IN IRELAND IN 2050. The project was offered to schools in Limerick as a pilot partnership between EPI•STEM at the University of Limerick, the HUNT Museum and the Limerick Education Support Centre. Here the engineering teache...
2025-05-2630 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 16In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 16, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome guests from thepost-primary school, Coláiste Chiaráin in Croom Co. Limerick – Edel Farrell, the physics teacher and three Transition Year students, Felix Nabor, Masha Galinovska and Andrew Szetlitsvoi.The students and their physics teacher recount the deep learning in STEAM education they experienced from participating in the project entitled DESIGN A SUSTAINABLE VILLAGE IN IRELAND IN 2050. The project was offered to schools in Limerick as a pilot partnership between EPI•STEM at the University of Limerick, the HUNT Museum and theLimerick Educatio...
2025-05-2635 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 15In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 15, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD discuss the positioning of education at a crossroads once again in light of the fast changing global economic landscape brought about by the US President Donal Trump. The imposition of trade tariffs between nation states brings an abrupt end to the last twenty years or more of free trade and free movement of people, goods and services across the globe.The central question Geraldine and Michelle engage with here is why a change to the economy of this substantive and unforeseen scale will in...
2025-04-1035 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 14In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 14, co-hosts GeraldineSimmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Associate Professor Niamh O’Meara, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education and Deputy Director of EPI•STEM The National Centre for STEM Education in the School ofEducation, University of Limerick. In this episode Niamh shares her passion formathematics from her early school days, a passion that has nowadays found expression in Niamh’s research specialism, theorising mathematics teachers’ content knowledge in contemporary times. Here, Niamh also speaks to her researchinterest in related topics such as numeracy across the curriculum, improving adult numeracy an...
2025-04-0237 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 13In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 13, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Associate Professor Donal Canty, Deputy Head of the School of Education and Senior Lecturer in TechnologyEducation at the School of Education, University of Limerick.Donal shares the origins of his passion for educationand for technology education from his early life growing up in Kerry. Interestingly, Donal connects his current role as an academic in UL and his former role as a secondary school teacher with the importance of the ethic of care and relationship needed to play his best in a...
2025-04-0131 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 12In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 12, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Associate Professor Jason Power, a Senior Lecturer in Engineering Education in the School of Education in the University of Limerick.Jason shares his passion for engineering and teaching engineering to student teachers who will become the next generation of STEM teachers. Jason’s research interest lies in the multidisciplinary spaces between engineering and the psychology of problem-solving and learning. His researchexcellence is in the area of theorising self-efficacy as a crucialpsychological self-belief system in engineering education. This research specialism runs...
2025-03-0726 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 12In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 11, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Associate Professor Jason Power, a Senior Lecturer in Engineering Education in the School of Education in the University of Limerick.Jason shares his passion for engineering and teaching engineering to student teachers who will become the next generation of STEM teachers. Jason’s research interest lies in the multidisciplinary spaces between engineering and the psychology of problem-solving and learning. His researchexcellence is in the area of theorising self-efficacy as a crucialpsychological self-belief system in engineering education. This research specialism runs...
2025-03-0629 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 11In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 11, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Norma O’Brien, the Director of the Limerick Education Support Centre (LESC). Norma explains the ongoingeducative and partnership work of the centre, for example, through ongoing liaison with school principals in primary and post-primary schools in Limerick city and county and Tipperary, providing CPD for school leaders and teachers and workingwith community groups, museums, national and regional policymakers and local enterprises.Norma shares her vast expertise of working as a former scienceteacher and school leader in different schools in Irel...
2025-02-2429 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 10In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 10, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Tara E. Ryan, a PhD student in Physics who now works in the ACTUATE LAB in the Department of Chemical Sciences in the Bernal Institute in the University of Limerick under the supervision of Professor Sarah Guerin. Tara is a UL graduate of a science teacher education degree and worked for one summer as a Research Assistant in EPI•STEM. During that time Tara produced CPD resources for teachers in chemistry, physics and earth and science that are now made available on t...
2025-02-1624 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 9In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 9, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Dr. Avril Mc Loughlin, a researcher and lecturer in the Irish
World Academy of Music and Dance at UL. Avril shares her research interest in community music and music education and the important interplay between theory, practice and culture.
We tease out some tensions and synergies between the Arts and Music and STEM subjects, and how that plays out in contested views of STEAM Education. While there are technical aspects to all disciplines we are also interested in the ma...
2024-12-0227 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 8In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 8, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD read from a letter sent to EPI•STEM by the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins. The President congratulates everyone connected to the Transition Year STEAM Education project entitled ‘Design a Sustainable
Eco-Village in Ireland in 2050’, especially the students in the seven schools in Limerick.
Geraldine and Michelle chat today with special guest Associate
Professor Olivia Fitzmaurice. Olivia is a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education in the School of Education, an Affiliate of EPI•STEM The National Centre for STEM Education and Academic Director o...
2024-12-0226 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 7In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 7, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD present an introduction to research studies in the Critical Sociology of Education, and in the Critical Sociology of STEM Education and STEAM Education.
Research studies in the sociology of education seek to make meaning of the present in relation to human development, both from the individual and the societal perspective. Critical sociology of education studies, at masters and PhD level seek to interpret the present in order to change it in the direction of the greater good of society, care, social and planetary ju...
2024-11-2933 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 6In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 6, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD chat with Associate Professor Regina Kelly. Regina is a Lecturer in Science Education, a Course Director of Initial Teacher Education science programmes in the School of the Education and an Affiliate of EPI•STEM The National Centre for STEM Education.
Regina shares her passion for all things physics, looking at everyday phenomena to develop an understanding of physics concepts, moving away from just rote learning a set of formulas and definitions. Regina delves deeper into her research interest in the gender gap in STEM education, the...
2024-11-1827 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 5In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 5, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD chat with Emma King from the Hunt Museum about the workshop the museum is providing for the STEAM Education partnership project with EPI•STEM and the Limerick Education Support Centre.
Emma shares how cultural practices from the past can inspire TY students’ vision for sustainable living, including the museum’s Georgian architecture and its transformation from a customs house.
We share how the scarcity of resources led to a culture of reuse, repair, and redesign—sharply contrasting with todays’ disposable society. Students’ co...
2024-11-1228 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 4In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 4, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD discuss aspects of the STEAM Education project. This Transition Year project is a partnership between EPI•STEM at UL, the Limerick Education Support Centre and the Hunt Museum in Limerick.
Geraldine and Michelle speak to the holistic aims of
Transition Year as a year to find oneself and to explore one’s talents as well as taking an active part in social justice and outreach projects that help make a difference to the greater good of society, the local environment and the planet. Transi...
2024-11-0629 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 3In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 3, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD discuss the STEAM Education partnership project with Lauren O’Gorman, a Research Assistant in EPI•STEM and science teacher in the Crescent College Comprehensive S.J. in Limerick City.
The project is a partnership between EPI•STEM, the Limerick Education Support Centre and the Hunt Museum.
Lauren speaks to new inspiring public infrastructure in
Italy and elsewhere that can help to inspire Ireland to make a successful green and equitable transition, for wellbeing, social justice, climate action and sustainability. Lauren shares some new informat...
2024-10-2927 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 2In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 2, co-hosts
Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD chat about the upcoming STEAM Education partnership project, entitled ‘Design a Sustainable Eco-Village in Ireland in 2050’. This school-university-museum project involves a novel collaboration between the Limerick Education Support Centre, the Hunt Museum in Limerick City
and EPI•STEM The National Centre for STEM Education at the School of Education, University of Limerick.
Geraldine and Michelle share the names of the nine local schools that have registered on the project. They discuss the importance of being able to have the critical literacy and numeracy skills t...
2024-10-2923 minEPISTEM PODCASTEPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 1Co-Hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD, Professor of STEM Education and Director of EPI-STEM & Michelle Starr PhD, Research Liaison Officer, EPI*STEM National Centre for STEM Education
Guest Katelyn O’Neill, Final Year Student Teacher, School of Education Local
Musician Avril Mc Loughlin, Researcher and Lecturer, World Academy of Music & Dance, UL.
Recording & Editing Grzegorz Rogala, Digital Hub, Kemmy Business School, UL
2024-10-2923 min