Brenda is an environmental communications scholar specialising in media and communications research about climate change and energy transitions. She holds a PhD in Communications, an MSc in Science Communication and an undergraduate degree in Science. Her doctoral research critically examined the deployment of ideas about Low Carbon Transition in Irish news media to shed light on how the press circumscribe possibilities for public engagement with climate policy. On completion of her PhD in 2016 she was awarded a two-year Assistant Professorship in the School of Communications at Dublin City University.
Brenda has recently returned from the US on a Fulbright Scholarship at Arizona State University to learn about energy imaginaries and creative approaches to engaging stakeholders with energy transitions. Prior to that she was a Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin where she led an EPA funded study of media use and public perceptions of climate action in Ireland.
As an environmental media researcher, Brenda is interested in the ways in which media and culture shape understandings of, and responses to, climate change and energy transition. Her current research examines the production of climate and energy futures in digital visual culture in terms of the implications for environment-society relations such as citizen engagement with nature and place.