New Addition to the SOAR Project Team


The SOAR Project is delighted to introduce the recently appointed Post-Doctoral Researcher Dr. Annie Cummins to the team.

Annie holds a BA in Montessori Education  from St. Nicholas College and a Higher Diploma, Masters (Sociology) and PhD from UCC where her research focused on inclusive practices of primary schools for children with disabilities and the gendered play experience of children in various school settings. She was awarded an Irish Research Council scholarship in her exploration of the  play experience of children in centre-based after-school settings in Ireland for her PhD.

Annie has taught in University College Cork, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Griffith College and St. Nicholas Montessori College, her teaching areas include Sociology of Education, Social Policy, Reflective Pedagogical Practices and Sociology of Childhood.

Her research to date strives to ensure that the participants ‘voice’ is at the heart of the methodology and she has adopted a number of creative methods to facilitate participant engagement in research such as art, animation, and song-writing workshops. Annie will work with the South Cluster HEIs and community partners to develop an effective evaluation framework that documents the SOAR Project and captures both the impact and learning of project work streams.