New journalists in residence for 2025 at UCD Earth Institute

UCD Earth Institute is delighted to announce four new resident journalists who will work with the institute and its members over the next year. With this second year of residencies, we look forward to collaborating with four impressive journalists working across a range of media with diverse experience and interests.

The selected journalists for 2025 are investigative reporter Shauna Corr, environmental journalist Jeremy Deaton, Morning Ireland reporter Eithne Dodd and journalist Ian Smith. Short bios are provided below. We’d like to thank the 2024 journalists - Claire O’Connell, Lauren Boland and Janine Kennedy – for their engagement and commitment over the past year. 

Launched in 2024, the Earth Institute's journalist in residence scheme is one of the first such programmes at an Irish university, and the first with a focus on environmental, climate, and sustainability research.  By fostering collaboration between journalists and academics, the scheme aims to amplify public discourse on pressing global challenges, to drive meaningful change through informed dialogue and storytelling, and to support high-quality journalism around environmental research.

Earth Institute journalists in residence for 2025

(opens in a new window)Shauna Corr

Shauna Corr is an investigative reporter with a particular interest in social justice and the environment.  She took the leap into the freelance world after almost eight years with Reach Plc, where she covered everything from breaking news to crime, health and education before being promoted to environment correspondent for the island of Ireland at titles including the Irish Mirror, Star and Belfast Live. In that time, she has reported from four UN climate conferences and highlighted the impacts of the climate crisis in countries like Somalia, Kenya, CAR, Greece and at home for an Irish audience.  The environmental columnist and Social Change Initiative fellow also broke many stories including the impact of blue-green algae on Lough Neagh, Belfast Lough sewage pollution, the plight of exported Irish calves, coursed hares and red listed birds still being shot for sport as well as ongoing fights against LNG, new fossil fuel infrastructure and mining. She hopes to focus on water issues and tree scarcity during her time as an in-house reporter with UCD’s Earth Institute.

(opens in a new window)Jeremy Deaton 

Jeremy Deaton is an environmental journalist and the managing editor of Yale Environment 360, an award-winning online magazine based at Yale University that features reporting, opinion, and analysis from leading environmental writers and scholars. In ten years as a journalist, Jeremy has reported extensively on science, climate, and the environment, with his work appearing in outlets such as Bloomberg, NBC News, The Washington Post, and The Irish Times. Originally from California, he now lives in Galway with his partner and their one-year-old son. As a journalist in residence at the UCD Earth Institute, Jeremy will cover efforts to restore Ireland's native forests and wildlife and to curb the climate impact of farming.

(opens in a new window)Eithne Dodd

Eithne works as a reporter for the Morning Ireland radio programme in RTÉ, covering the biggest news stories of the day for an Irish audience. Her journalism focuses on environment, climate and energy. She has a master’s degree in International Journalism from City, University of London and a bachelor’s in Economics and English from UCD. With this residency, Eithne hopes to deepen her understanding of environmental issues and how they will impact the lives of ordinary people. Everyone needs clean air to breath, safe water to drink and dignity in how and where they live. These are all environmental issues. To start her residency, Eithne will explore flood risk in Ireland and would like to speak to experts on how that risk is increasing due to global warming, what the risk means for people, plants and animals that live on or near rivers and coasts and how those risks can be managed in a way that is respectful of lives and livelihoods.

(opens in a new window)Ian Smith

Ian Smith is an editorial manager at the European Newsroom, a cooperative project between news agencies in Europe. Previously, he was a journalist at Euronews for over three years, producing social media content and writing articles on environmental topics, ranging from why Europe should embrace the ‘bumgun’ to how to get more people taking trains. He holds a bachelor’s in social science from UCD and a master’s in journalism from the University of Groningen. During the residency, he’s keen to explore stories around transport, air pollution and climate justice and aims to bring them to audiences in engaging ways at a time where climate journalism faces challenges in breaking through. 

Prof. Eoin O'Neill, Director of the UCD Earth Institute, welcomed the new journalists:

“I’m delighted to welcome four new journalists to the UCD Earth Institute as part of our journalists-in-residence scheme. This programme indicates our commitment to engaging with the public on the complex challenges we face today. The scheme aims to instigate conversations between journalists, academics and the public about environmental, climate and sustainability issues, and to support high-quality journalism informed by research”.

Enquiries:

For enquiries about the UCD Earth Institute journalist-in-residence scheme or to be put in touch with one of the journalists, please email Caitriona Devery, Institute research manager (opens in a new window)caitriona.devery@ucd.ie. 

Read more about UCD Earth Institute.