My Biography

Laura holds the position of Assistant Head of Department (Education) in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning and is responsible for the management and supervision of the School programmes, research activities and external engagement in conjunction with the Head of School and Head of Department.  She is responsible, together with the Principal Investigators, for the School's National and EU funded research projects and works closely with the advisory groups on the implementation plans, monitoring and operational management of funded research projects.  She has acted as academic project manager on several large scale research and education projects, including those funded by the Higher Education Authority, Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and the National Forum for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.  

Laura has worked in Higher Education since 2004 as assistant lecturer, eLearning Coordinator and was previously Head of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) at WIT before moving into the role of AHOD (Education).  As Head of TEL, Laura was actively involved in providing leadership and instrumental in creating, initiating, implementing and evaluating a range of strategic projects including the successful introduction of the Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and the development of the WIT Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning (CTEL).  She is also co-founder of the WIT TEL Community of Practice (CoP).  

Laura is a graduate of WIT holding a Bachelor of Science in Commercial Software Development and a Masters in Science.  Her MSc(by research) focused on creating reusable computer based assessments and she is currently studying for a Doctorate in Education at the Institute of Education, University College London.  Her research is on lectures’ perceptions on the inclusion of Digital Learning Design in professional undergraduate curricula.   Laura has published in the area of TEL and was deputy president of Irish Learning Technology Association (ILTA) for seven years which involved co-chairing an annual national conference and establishing the Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning.