Dr. Susan Hegarty
Susan Hegarty is a geographer and Associate Professor in the DCU School of
History and Geography. She is Institutional Lead for DCU Futures, within the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs. Her research focuses on citizen science for
monitoring water quality, and on the evolution of the Irish landscape and our use of that landscape. She has researched the role of the Quaternary
ice-sheets on this landscape and the role Quaternary sediments play in the
vulnerability of water sources to pollutants. She is also interested in the
exploitation of Irish mineral resources in the nineteenth century.
She is enthusiastic about transmitting the importance of Geography to the wider public, and to this end has taken part in a number of documentary series on both Irish and British television channels and is involved in a number of citizen science projects looking at water quality in Ireland. She also sees fieldwork as an integral part of the training of geography students, and promotes field studies within undergraduate geography. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Research Interests
- Catchment-scale management of water resources
- Citizen science for water quality monitoring
- Irish landscape evolution and environmental history (particularly in the south-east of Ireland)
- Historical use of Irish mineral resources
Teaching Interests
Water resources; Irish physical geography and geomorphology; GIS