Katriona O’Sullivan

Dr Katriona O’Sullivan was born in Coventry to Irish parents, where her upbringing was marked by addiction, poverty, teenage pregnancy and homelessness. In 1998, at 20, she moved from Birmingham to Dublin and subsequently enrolled in the Trinity College access programme, going on to complete a PhD before becoming an award-winning lecturer and speaker, whose work challenges barriers to education. Her first book, Poor, was critically acclaimed, winning the Biography of the Year and Listeners’ Choice Awards at the Irish Book Awards in 2023, and has been in the top ten non-fiction bestsellers in Ireland for nearly two years. Poor was adapted into a stage show at the Gate theatre in 2025 and received rave reviews. Due to popular demand, the show will return to the stage in the Spring of 2026 Katriona is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology in Maynooth University and Director of Centre for Inclusive Higher Education. Her second memoir Hungry: A Biography of my Body will be published by Hachette Ireland in April 2026.