Lecturer

Email: jennifer.byrne@tudublin.ie

Tel: 01 220 6808

Jennifer Byrne (She/Her)

Cabinetmaker, PGDip T&L, MSc ELearning, MA Higher Ed.

Lecturer in Construction

Jennifer has over 26 years experience lecturing as a Higher Education professional following from an early career as a Cabinetmaker and Site Foreperson.

Jennifer is a strong advocator of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), she was involved in setting up Women Building the Future Network, which is aimed at supporting females in TU Dublin's Access to Apprenticeship programme and other females in an apprenticeship as well as qualified craftswomen. This is a fantastic network that enables young females to mix and ask questions from many other females at different stages in their journeys, students, graduates, apprentices and qualified women working in construction, engineering, motor mechanics and many other skilled crafts. Jennifer also recruits and delivers for "Try a Trade Taster Days" in TU Dublin aimed at providing young females with the opportunity to get a hands-on experience working with wood and tools.

Jennifer is a strong information technology professional with a Master of Science (MSc) in Applied eLearning focused on Higher Education from Dublin Institute of Technology also a Master of Arts in Higher Education from TU Dublin. In recent years she has obtained National Forum Digital Badges & Facilitators Badges in Universal Design for Teaching & Learning and National Forum Getting Started with Online Teaching. She was a Facilitator on the UDL National Rollout with Ahead 2021.

Jennifer is experienced in public speaking, providing mentoring talks, developing and assessing curricula. She contributed to the curriculum development of the new BSc (Hons) Sustainable Timber Technology Programme,TU838, first intake in September 2021. Previously she played a similar role in setting up the Access to Apprenticeship programme. Jennifer works on many TU Dublin wide projects in areas of widening participation, civic engagement, and EDI. The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Group was tasked with creating The Gender Identity and Gender Expression Policy which was approved by the President’s Group in November 2020.

Jennifer is also heavily involved with the Athena Swan Ireland Intersectionality Working Group, which devised the ‘Race Equality Survey for Higher Education Institutes’. This was the first ever Race Equality Charter survey sent to the Irish HEI’s.

Jennifer completed her second season as an expert Judge on RTE’s The Big DIY Challenge 2021. Jennifer’s incredible expertise coupled with her no-nonsense approach was a huge hit with viewers and has raised the profile of women working in the traditional trades.