Assoc ProfessorKaren Keaveney

Associate Professor Karen Keaveney is Head of Subject for Rural Development in the School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin. She leads the 'Citizen Rural Research Lab' in the School of Agriculture and Food Science, and is a founding member of the UCD Centre for Irish Towns (CfIT). Karen is Principal Investigator for the Irish Research Council (IRC) funded project: 'Citizen Rural: Digital Data for Participatory Democracy in Remote Places' which is examining data and evidence for bottom-up decision-making in rural localities. Additional current projects include: InPLACE - Investigating Place, Planning and Commuting which is examining post-covid commuting impacts on rural towns.

Previously, Karen was a Lecturer in Rural Spatial Planning in Queen's University Belfast. She has held a number of visiting appointments internationally, including Visiting Research Fellow in the Joint Centre for Housing Studies, Harvard University, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto. She has been a member of both the Social Science and Geographical Sciences Committees in the Royal Irish Academy. She is currently the UCD representative on the Department for Rural and Community Development 'Our Rural Future' HEI Network, and is a member of the Rural Housing Subcommittee of the Housing Commission.

She is a qualified Urban and Regional Planner (UCD) with an undergraduate degree in Human and Physical Geography (University of Galway) and PhD in Geography (Maynooth University) entitled 'Contested Ruralities: Housing in the Irish Countryside'. Karen is a Rural Geographer and Planner, with research interests in rural planning and housing, rural development, and agricultural education. She has expertise in co-design in local decision-making and governance, rural power relations and socio-economic change in the countryside. Her publications and research include the areas of policy responses to rural change, cross-border and inter-jurisdictional planning, local government reform, and planning on the island of Ireland. She is currently the President of the Geographical Society of Ireland (2024-26).