Background

My background isn't just academic. For nearly a decade I volunteered in peer-led HIV testing — delivering on-location rapid tests in community venues across Dublin, sitting with people in the moment a result comes back. For a similar stretch I took calls on a helpline for LGBTQIA+ people in distress — sometimes in crisis, sometimes just needing somewhere to land.

That work taught me things no module covers: how people carry stigma quietly, how identity and health can collide in ways that are hard to name, how much it matters that the person across from you already understands the landscape.

I also spent close to two decades in corporate environments — legal background, high-pressure teams, the kind of culture where burnout is treated as a scheduling problem. I know what it looks like to keep performing when something is quietly breaking.

My clinical placement was in a queer-affirming therapeutic setting working specifically with individuals navigating an HIV diagnosis — environments where boundaries are often contested and where shame and resilience sit side by side. I've also completed a diploma in group work, which informs how I understand relational dynamics and the way people show up differently in different rooms.

I bring all of that in with me. Not as credentials to display, but as context that means I'm not asking you to explain your world from scratch.