NH Listens Local People, Local Work, Local Change: Navigating Public Life in a Diverse Democracy 

by Manuela Heinz, and Gerry Mac Ruairc from the University of Galway, Ireland. Dr. Heinz and Dr. Ruairc will bring an international perspective to the kinds of issues and controversies in k – 12 education.  

Dr. Manuela Heinz is an Associate Professor and the Head of Discipline of Education at the University of Galway. She has worked in the area of initial and in-service teacher education for over 15 years and has held the roles of School Placement Director, Programme Director of the Professional Master of Education and Chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee. Manuela has led funded research and teaching projects (Irish Research Council, Higher Education Authority, Erasmus+) in the areas of teacher education, teacher diversity and equity, intercultural and global citizenship education. She has published widely in leading research journals and is a member of the editorial boards of European Journal of Teacher Education and Learning Environments Research. She has also served on working groups and steering committees with a wide range of education partners including the Irish Teaching Council, the Department of Education, and the Ubuntu Network for Sustainable Development. 

Prof. Gerry Mac Ruairc is an Established Professor of Education who has served as the Head of the School of Education at the University of Galway for seven years (2015-2022). Previously to taking up his role in Galway, Gerry was a teacher, School Inspector and Associate Professor in the School of Education in University College Dublin. Gerry is the Programme Director of the M.Ed. in Education Leadership.  He has published widely in the areas of leadership for inclusive schooling, language and social class, literacy as well as in the areas of leadership and school improvement for equity and social justice. He has worked extensively on a number of European projects including acting as an advisor to the review of Leadership Development in Poland under the direction of the Polish  Ministry of Education, and as a contributor and advisor to the work of the leadership development units of Lower Saxony, NLQ (Hildesheim) and LISUM (Berlin). Gerry was also appointed as expert advisor to the EU Commission European Policy Network on School Leadership (EPNoSL).