Dr Niamh Gallagher is an Assistant Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Programmes in Early Childhood Care & Education and Social Care Practice within the School of Business & Social Sciences at Sligo Institute of Technology. She joined the Institute in January 2016 and has a professional background in clinical Speech & Language Therapy.

She teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels within the school and has a special interest in teaching professional studies, communication skills, interdisciplinary practice, evidence based practice, additional needs, reflective practice, language delay and disorder and qualitative research methods.

Prior to commmencing her academic position with Sligo Institute of Technology Niamh worked as a Senior Speech & Language Therapist in Primary Care with the HSE for a period of fifteen years. Here she was responsible for the assessment, differential diagnosis and management of children presenting with a range of specific and non specific speech and language disorders and the clinical supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate speech and language therapy students. She was also responsible for designing and implementing various CPD programmes for other health/social care disciplines and preschool/primary school educators on a variety of topics of relevance to Speech & Language Therapy.

Within the academic context, Niamh has worked as a Research Fellow and Lecturer at National University of Ireland, Galway both in the Department of Speech & Language Therapy and General Practice (Primary Care). She completed her PhD with the Department of General Practice in 2010 which was a qualitative case study exploring service users' and providers' perspectives of continuity of care in out-of-hours primary care. She also has a special interest in research exploring access issues in the educational system for children with additional or specific needs and preschool/primary school educators' experiences of teaching and supporting these children and their families. 

Niamh's career ambition is to continue to contribute to the development of academic social/health and educational sciences through high quality teaching and research of national and international relevance.