| Role/Grade | Research Fellow |
| Team | Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) |
| Research Interests | Educational Disadvantage, Equity in education, Evidence-informed Policy, Literacy, Evaluation |
| Professional profile (300 words) | Dr Lorraine Gilleece is a Research Fellow at the ERC, currently overseeing Ireland’s participation in the 2026 cycle of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). From 2019 to 2024, she led the ERC’s research and evaluation related to educational disadvantage and represented the ERC on the DEIS Technical Group, DEIS Monitoring and Evaluation Group and DEIS Advisory Group, chaired by the Department of Education. She has co-authored several reports in recent years examining the experiences and achievement of students in DEIS primary and post-primary schools. She has also recently overseen the development of an evaluation framework for teachers’ professional learning in Ireland.
Since joining the ERC in 2007, Lorraine has gained extensive experience of large-scale assessments, having worked on studies including PIRLS, ICCS (the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study), PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) and the National Assessments of Mathematics and English Reading. Her current research interests focus on improving the use of evidence to inform education policy, with a particular focus on equity in education.
Lorraine holds a B.A. (Mod) in Computer Science, Linguistics and French and a Higher Diploma in Statistics, both from Trinity College Dublin where she was elected Scholar in 2000. She also has an MSc in Psychology and a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, both from Liverpool Hope University. She completed her Ph.D. in Linguistics in Trinity College Dublin. |
| Researcher Profiles | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2804-0405
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorraine-gilleece-0b482890/
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