Dr Orla Ní Cheallacháin is the EMA Programme Director. She is responsible for the strategic development, coordination and implementation of the EMA programme as well as its daily operational management and overall academic coordination.
She works closely with the EMA Governing Bodies, and she is a member of the Global Campus Academic Affairs Committee. She contributes in various ways to the teaching of the first semester curriculum and convenes the rolling seminar on International Relations.
Orla holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from University College Dublin where she was a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholar, funded by the Irish Research Council. She also holds an MSc (Econ) in Terrorism and International Relations from Aberystwyth University, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Social Science Research Skills with a specialism in researching violently divided societies from the University of Ulster. In 2022, her research was nominated for the Basil Chubb Prize (Political Studies Association of Ireland), the Máire de Paor Best Thesis Award (University College Dublin) and the Jean Blondel Prize (the European Consortium of Political Research). Her research interests include the intersection of security practice, politics and human rights, particularly in times of crisis. A key focus of her teaching is to engage students as critical thinkers and to equip them with the necessary tools to develop their own analytical voice.
She is co-chair of the EMA Working Group on Curriculum Review. In this capacity, she coordinated and implemented several changes to the EMA curriculum and cultivated a research interest in human rights education at higher level, in which she has engaged with questions concerning the how, what and why of graduate human rights education.
Before joining the Global Campus of Human Rights, Orla coordinated modules on international relations, critical security studies, and gender, peace and conflict at University College Dublin and provided teaching assistance on a range of courses including political theory, comparative politics and research methods.