Joe Whelan

Joe has worked in the school of Applied Social Studies since 2016. Currently, Joe acts as as year 1 coordinator on the Bachelor of Social Work program. Joe also delivers lectures and tutorials and supervises final year undergraduate students who are undertaking research dissertations as part of their course requirements.

Joe previously worked as an Assistant Lecturer at the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and as a self-employed plastering contractor during which time he trained three apprentices to qualification and delivered modules to many more apprentices over the course of his time at CIT.

Joe recently finished his research as a PhD candidate at the School of Applied Social Studies in UCC during which he was supervised by Dr Fiona Dukelow and Mr Pat Leahy. The projected was designed to gain an insight into and understanding of the lives of working age welfare recipients in Ireland, being specifically interested in the concept of stigma and how and where this may be experienced by welfare recipients in their day to day lives. Joe successfully defended his doctoral thesis via the Viva Voce process which took place on December 18th 2019. His internal examiner was Professor Cathal O' Connell and his external examiner was Dr Ruth Patrick from the University of York.

Recently, Joe has been involved in the founding of a new network, the Critical Welfare State Studies Network. This network aims to bring together scholars from a broad range of disciplines who are interested or engaged in work relating to the Irish welfare state. The network successfully held it's first annual conference in UCC in September 2019 under the theme 'Critical Perspectives on Stigma, Shame and the Irish Welfare Imaginary'.