Welcome to our newest academic staff members

Tuesday, August 31, 2021 - 20:00
We are delighted to welcome three new members to our team this academic year 2021/22: 
 
Assistant Lecturer in Politics 
Department of Sociology 
 
 
Dr John Brown joins the department this September to work delivering key modules on the undergraduate politics degree. 

John completed his PhD in the Sociology Department at Maynooth University in 2018, where he examined the emergence and development of left-led democratization processes in Bolivia and Venezuela. You can read more about John’s work on Bolivia in a recently published paper here. Before his doctorate, John completed a Masters in International Development at Dublin College University, and his undergraduate degree in Business, Economics, and Social Studies at Trinity College Dublin. 

 
John’s research focuses on the causes for the emergence of outsider parties and how such parties relate to social movement constituent bases. He has received several awards to carry out research, including from the Irish Research Council, The National University of Ireland, The Fulbright Commission, and Maynooth University.  

 

Assistant Lecturer 
Department of Sociology 
 
 
Dr Philip Finn who joins the department this September, will work on delivering key modules on the undergraduate sociology degree. 
 
A graduate of the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University (2019), Philip’s PhD, The Absurdity of Welfare: Experiences of Irish Welfare Conditionality, explored the lived experience of welfare conditionality and sanctions. Philip also holds an MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism (CEESA) from Maynooth University.  
 
His other research interests include welfare agency and resistance, the politics of work, and social reproduction. His most recent publication is titled: ‘Navigating Indifference: Irish Jobseekers’ Experiences of Welfare Conditionality’. In 2019 he was a visiting fellow at York University as part of the Welfare Conditionality Project. He co-authored the report The High Road Back to Work: Developing a Public Employment Eco System for a Post-Covid Recovery.  

 

Assistant Lecturer 
Department of Sociology 
 
 
Dr Pranav Kohli joins the department this September and will work on delivering key modules on the undergraduate sociology degree. 

Pranav holds a PhD in Anthropology from Maynooth University (2021), an MPhil in Race, Ethnicity and Conflict from Trinity College Dublin, and a BA in Journalism and Communication from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education. Pranav’s doctoral research studied the emergence and popularity of Hindu nationalism in India through an ethnographic account of the 1947 Partition of India. Entitled, Memory, Theodicy and Victimhood: The Afterlife of the Partition of India, Pranav examined how survivors use the ideology of Hindu nationalism to rationalise the Partition’s death and suffering.  

 
Pranav is currently working on Invisible Monsters: The Pandemic Imaginary of Infectious Pathogens and Infectious Bodies; an international collaborative research project funded by a Social Science Research Council Covid-19 Rapid-Response Grant. Read one of Pranav’s most recent publications here: Dissecting the Hindu Chauvinism in India’s Covid-19 Response