Dr Maria Quinlan

Dr Maria Quinlan is General Manager of the National Research & Development team within the HSE. The HSE Research & Development function is responsible for implementing the HSE’s Action Plan for Health Research, including the reform of Research Ethics and the implementation of the HSE’s Research Governance Framework. Ensuring PPI in research is embedded at all levels of research activity within health and social care is a key aim of the HSE’s Action Plan for Health Research, and HSE Research & Development is a national partner on the PPI Ignite network.

Maria is a sociologist, whose own research has focused on the use of creative, participatory methods which aim to facilitate people in sharing their lived-experience, and which challenge traditional power structures within research. Her research is multidisciplinary, with a particular focus on the use of trauma-informed methods to explore social inclusion and equity within health and social care. She specialises in the use of visual methods such as photovoice, and has partnered with a wide-range of health and social care organisations and advocacy groups to explore the lived of experience of mental health, health-related stigma, homelessness, addiction, sexual violence, and inequities and exclusion based on gender, race, and ethnicity.

Maria is committed to ensuring that traditionally marginalised and seldom-heard groups are more fundamentally represented within all aspects of research, and within the PPI community overall. She is founder of Pink Flower Research, and was formerly Research Lead at the Applied Research for Connected Health centre at University College Dublin; and Head of Research at the Institute for Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy.