A former teacher in the Jes and lifelong advocate for STEM Education reflected on a career path that has taken her from the classroom to the lecture halls of University of Limerick – and life at the cutting edge of European education.

Geraldine Mooney Simmie, a native of Lisdoonvarna who lives in Barna, presented her inaugural lecture at the University of Limerick recently.

The lecture marked the third year of Geraldine’s appointment as Professor of STEM Education in the School of Education and her fifth year as Director of EPI∙STEM, the National Centre for STEM Education.

The lecture provided an opportunity to share something of her background in relation to her passion as an educational researcher in the Cultural Politics of STEM Education and her theorisations of STEM teachers’ identities and practices published in the international literature.

Professor Mooney Simmie graduated from UCG with a degree in chemistry and mathematics and a master’s by research in chemistry before completing the higher diploma in education and becoming a science and mathematics teacher in Coláiste Iognáid, the Jes, in Galway.

Geraldine lives in Furbo with her husband John; their adult sons and wives, Sean and Sabrina, and Donal and Cienna, live in London.

While dedicated to her role as a science and math teacher in the Jes, Geraldine wrote chemistry and science books and was a member of the Junior Cycle chemistry support team. This was followed by a decade supporting Transition Year in the west of Ireland.

She says that this experience awakened a deep understanding of what is meant by a holistic education. “It is clearly more than the sum of the parts and more than anything that can be counted and measured,” she says.

Taking a critical and feminist perspective, Geraldine’s research considers STEM education as an open ethical question concerned as much with the soul project of human development as much as with the relational work in becoming a worker or an active citizen.

This set the scene for Geraldine’ entry into higher education, and her PhD study in Comparative Policy Education between Ireland and Norway, in relation to science and mathematics teachers’ learning with Dr Seamas Ó’Buachalla, in Trinity College Dublin.

During the last twenty years in UL, Professor Mooney Simmie has produced an impressive collection of substantive academic papers in top international journals, arising from her research work with colleagues in EPI∙STEM, with science and mathematics teachers in Ireland and with international research colleagues.

As Director of EPI∙STEM, Geraldine leads the research work of PhD students and research fellows and is supported in this work by over forty EPI∙STEM affiliates, including student teachers, scientists, mathematicians and engineers in UL, and the wider community of schools, teachers, education centres and local enterprises.

She also acts as an expert researcher with the European Commission in relation to their new scoping study for Education & Skills for a future green and digital transition in Europe and is the national convenor for the Critical and Feminist Special Interest Group in Ireland with the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI).

Pictured: Professor Geraldine Mooney Simmie (second left), Professor of STEM Education, with (from left) Professor Paul Conway, Head of the School of Education; Professor Deirdre McGrath, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Health Sciences and Professor Shane Kilcommins, President of the University of Limerick.