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Dr. Aoife Lynam

Assistant Professor (Education)
      
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Dr. Aoife Lynam

Assistant Professor (Education)

 AOIFE.LYNAM@tcd.ie

 


Dr Aoife Lynam is an Assistant Professor in Psychology of Education in the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin. She was awarded the Trinity Gold Medal (2009) for outstanding undergraduate performance and received a Trinity College Dublin Faculty Scholarship (2012). She is also a former Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences Scholar (2013"2015). Her doctoral research, which was supported by two scholarships, examined the experiences of bereaved young people in Irish primary and post-primary schools. Dr Lynam has over 18 years" experience in education and has worked full-time in higher education since 2015. She lectures in Psychology of Education, Research Methods, and Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE), and has extensive experience supervising pre-service teachers both on school placement and in the completion of their research dissertations. She serves as Programme Coordinator for the M.Ed. in Psychology of Education and as Dissertation Coordinator for the Research Methods module within the Professional Master of Education programme, contributing to programme development, student support, and postgraduate research supervision. Her research and collaborative work has spanned a number of institutions, including Trinity College Dublin, Stranmillis University College, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Hibernia College, and Dublin City University (DCU). Dr Lynam is an Advisory Board Member of the Irish Childhood Bereavement Network (ICBN), a member of the Management Board of the Trinity Research in Childhood Centre (TRiCC), and serves on the management board of the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID). She is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI). Dr Lynam has published and presented her research widely at both national and international levels.
  BEREAVEMENT   Bereavement studies   Bullying   Death, Dying and Bereavement   Disability Inclusion   EDUCATION   Educational Psychology   Higher Education   Inclusive Education   Initial Teacher Education   INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY   Special Education   special educational needs   Special Needs Education   Teacher Education
Details Date
Management Board Member, Trinity Research in Childhood Centre (TRiCC). This involves srategic input into interdisciplinary childhood research and knowledge exchange 2023-present
Advisory Board Member, Irish Childhood Bereavement Network (ICBN). This is a National role contributing to policy, practice, and support frameworks for bereaved children and young people 2016-present
Board Director, Vision Ireland Services Board. This was a Governance role contributing to services and supports for individuals with visual impairment 2024-2025
Editor of Special Issue for Brain Sciences: Mc Guckin, C., Carr-Fanning, K., Lynam, A. M. (Eds.). (2025). So, what? What does contemporary ADHD research tell us about lived experiences? [Special issue]. Brain Sciences, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15030292 2025
Advisory Board Member, Irish Childhood Bereavement Network (ICBN): Contributing to national strategy, policy, and resource development to support bereaved children and young people. 2016-present
Board Director, Vision Ireland Services Board (2024-2025), contributing to governance and service development for individuals with visual impairment 2024-2025
Advisory Board Member, Irish Childhood Bereavement Network (ICBN) (2016-present), contributing to national policy, practice, and supports for bereaved children and young people 2016-present
Advisory Board Member, Irish Childhood Bereavement Network (ICBN), contributing to national policy, practice, and supports for bereaved children and young people. 2016-present
Professional Membership. Member, Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) 2012-present
Thesis Committee Member (multiple PhD candidates). This involves ongoing academic service supporting doctoral research development. 2023-present
External Examiner, Dublin Business School (2022-present). This involves oversight of academic standards and programme quality in Social Science education 2022-2025
PhD Internal Examiner & Viva Chair (multiple occasions since 2023). This involves contribution to doctoral-level assessment and academic standards in the discipline 2023-present
Details Date From Date To
Member of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) Executive Committee 2025 Present
Member of the Teaching Council 2008 present
Member of Educational Studies Association of Ireland 21.3.25 Present
Member of the Trinity Research in Childhood Centre (TRiCC) 2023 Present
Management board member for the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID). 2025 Present
Board Director for Vision Ireland 2024 2025
Advisory Board Member of the Irish Childhood Bereavement Network (ICBN) 2016 Present
Lynam, A.M., & Mc Guckin, C, Contemporary issues in the psychology of education, IGI Publishers, 2026, Book, PUBLISHED  DOI  URL
Barden, O., Lynam, A., & Mc Guckin, C, Understanding employment and intellectual disability, Edward Elgar Publishing., 2026, Book, IN_PRESS
Unlearning colonial perspectives in psychology of education. in, editor(s)A.M. Lynam & C. Mc Guckin , Contemporary issues in the psychology of education, IGI Publishers, 2026, pp35 - 54, [Lynam, A. M., Ehiwe, L., Mc Guckin, C., McCarthy, P., & Fitzgerald, G.], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Lynam, A.M., Scaife, S. J., & Mc Guckin, C., Childhood grief and relational wellbeing: Insights for creating compassionate school communities., 12th European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP 2026), Dublin, Ireland, 1st-4th July 2026, 2026, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED  URL
Lynam, A.M., Scaife, S. J., & Mc Guckin, C., Teaching the unspoken through the creative arts: What adult memories of childhood grief reveal for education and SPHE., From Legacy to Futures: Celebrating ESAI"s First Meeting of Scholars and 50 Years of Irish Educational Research, Galway, Ireland, 28th-30th May, 2026, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED  URL
Lynam, A. M., McCarthy, P., Ehiwe, L., & Mc Guckin, C., ). Seeing inclusion differently: Educational experiences of blind and vision impaired children in Irish schools., From Legacy to Futures: Celebrating ESAI's First Meeting of Scholars and 50 Years of Irish Educational Research., Galway, Ireland, 2026, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED  URL
McNally, S., Butler, S., Keenan, L., Lynam, A. M., & Sweeney, M. R., "I couldn't tell the teachers about it": Autistic students' experiences of bullying and exclusion in post-primary schools, International Journal of Bullying Prevention, 2026, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI  URL
Creating Inclusive University Experiences in, editor(s)C. Rogers-Shaw, T. Williams Park, K. Mohney, & K. Sheward , Fostering a Community of Success for Neurodivergent Collegiate Students, IGI Global, 2025, pp151 - 186, pp151-186 , [Aoife Lynam, Conor McGuckin, Jennifer Banks, Marie Devitt, Michael Shevlin, Des Aston, Barbara Ringwood, Eileen A. Murphy, Sadbh Feehan, Owen Barden, Vivian Rath, John Kubiak, Angela Mazzocco, Jill Woodnutt], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
Complicated Conversations: Decolonising Psychology of Education. in, Education matters: Ireland's yearbook of education 2024, Education Matters: Ireland's Yearbook, 2025, [Lynam, A.M., Ehiwe, L., & Mc Guckin, C.], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Creating inclusive schools: Enhancing educational opportunities for migrant and refugee children in Ireland. in, Education Matters, Dublin, Ireland, 2025, pp341 - 344, [Zheng, B., Lynam, A. M., & Mc Guckin, C.], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
  

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Lynam, A.M., The grief myth: it doesn't come in stages or follow a checklist, like love, it endures, The Conversation, 2026, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Lynam, A.M., What Bridget Jones teaches us about grief., 2026, -, Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Lynam, A.M., Kelly, M., Supporting Educators with End of Year Events, 2020, -, Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Lynam, A.M., Column: Young people are the "forgotten mourners"., 2013, -, Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Nominated for Inspiring Educator Award 2025-2026
Nominated for the Excellence in Supervision of Students Award 2025
Nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award 2024
Irish Research Council for the Humanities and the Social Sciences Scholarship 2013-2015
Trinity Faculty Scholarship 2012-2015
Master of Arts 2013
Trinity Gold Medal 2009
My research is defined by a sustained and high-impact focus on children and young people's experiences of education, with particular emphasis on grief. I am recognised as a national leader in Ireland and an internationally recognised expert in grief studies, advancing both theory and practice in educational contexts. A central strand of my work develops new conceptualisations of childhood bereavement, moving beyond stage-based models to position grief as an ongoing, relational, and meaning-making process shaped by identity, context, and relationships. This work has informed national discourse and professional practice, particularly in how schools support bereaved students. My research on neurodiversity extends this framework by examining how experiences of difference, exclusion, masking, and disrupted belonging can be understood through a grief-informed lens. For neurodivergent learners, these experiences may involve forms of ambiguous loss and identity negotiation, linking directly to processes of grief and meaning-making. This is reflected in my work on autistic students' school experiences and in my publication in Brain Sciences, which explores how grief theory enhances understanding of narrative reconstruction in ADHD. I have also edited a recent book on contemporary issues in the psychology of education, situating grief and inclusion within broader systemic challenges.