Katriona O’Sullivan is an Irish psychologist, academic and speaker who turns a childhood shaped by poverty, addiction and homelessness into powerful talks on resilience, mental health and opportunity.
She holds a PhD from Trinity College Dublin and is a senior lecturer at Maynooth University, where she leads the STEM Passport for Inclusion programme. She previously directed Turn to Teaching, a national initiative widening access to the teaching profession. Her memoir, Poor, became Ireland’s number one bestseller, sold more than 250,000 copies, and won Biography of the Year and The Last Word Listeners’ Choice Award.
Katriona’s own experience of teenage pregnancy, homelessness at fifteen and a home affected by parental heroin addiction gives her research on educational inequality an authority that data alone cannot provide. She argues that talent is spread evenly across social classes while opportunity is not, and shows how organisations can close that gap through practical, evidence-based change.
Audiences leave her talks with a clearer understanding of how disadvantage shapes potential, renewed confidence to challenge assumptions about who succeeds, and concrete ideas for building more inclusive schools, workplaces and communities. She has addressed the UN Commission for Social Development and the World Education Forum on these themes.
