EPISTEM PODCAST

EPI•STEM PODCAST — Conversation with Professor Sara Tolbert Originally recorded in June 2025 and republished as part of our continuing EPI•STEM series.
In this episode, co‑hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD speak with Professor Sara Tolbert, Professor of STEM Education at the University of Melbourne (Monash), where she co‑leads the Science Education in the Anthropocene Impact Lab. The lab is dedicated to reimagining humanity’s relationship with the natural world and exploring how science education must evolve in response to planetary challenges.
Professor Tolbert, formerly Professor of Science Education at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, discusses how the Impact Lab positions science education at the intersection of nature, culture, and society. This framing opens up new questions about how we teach science and how we prepare young people to navigate complex ecological, political, economic, and sociocultural systems shaping contemporary planetary conditions.
The conversation explores emerging and contested literature reshaping science education as both a theoretical and social movement. Professor Tolbert highlights new strands within the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA)—including futurism, intersectionality, inclusion, and expanded knowledge systems—that signal a shift in how science education’s purposes, histories, and practices are being reimagined.
Today’s musical selection is “Tears,” a Cape Breton waltz composed by Gerry Holland and performed by Dr. Avril McLoughlin, Lecturer in Music Education at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Professor Sibel Erduran as their special guest. Professor Sibel Erduran is the Professor of Science Education in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford in the UK. Professor Erduran is an internationally renowned science educator and researcher and the Editor and member of the Editorial Boards of an impressive number of Science Education journals. Prior to taking up this position in the University of Oxford, Sibel was a former Director of EPI·STEM at UL.
Professor Erduran started her career as a biochemist, qualified in the US, and later became a science and chemistry teacher. Here Sibel explains how she always carried a deep interest in the interdisciplinary nature of science and its relation to science and society. While evidence-based reasoning in science education continues to be a key skillset for young people, Sibel noticed the importance of opening broader questions of how we need to support science teachers and students differently in what has become a post-truth world. A world where there is a loss of trust in experts, where doubt can be socially engineered by different vested interests and power brokers, and where theimportance of science-in-society is nowadays more important than ever.
Professor Sibel Erduran explains why science educators can no longer ignore the ethical and political dimensions of teaching science to young people and in science teachers’ continuing professional learning. Do we need to embrace our humanity in the science classroom or leave ourselves open to becoming reduced to an algorithm in this new world of AI. Young people will clearly need access to a multiplicity of knowledge(s), skillsets and values to navigate the complex social and environmental issues of our time, and to do this in ways that areempowering and imbued with hope and social justice. This new imaginary will need to open a new dialogue in the science classrooms, hold tensions in play, have new competences moving beyond critical thinking and problem solving and newskillsets such as, probabilistic thinking and critical appraisal of the power and limits of science.
Working closely with Professor Olivia Levrini and others, Professor Sibel Erduran is one of the founding members of a new Special Interest Group (SIG No 8) in the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) called, Futures-Oriented Science Education. The SIG aims to open these new debates within the community of science education researchers in relation to the multiplicity of futures needing to be reimagined for science education. Sibel speaks to the urgency to open the debate on AI and how it influences all aspects of science education, the need to stay with the pros and cons,questions of regulation and the potential for inbuilt biases in these modelling tools. The problem of AI in science educators and teachers’ practices will need to be framed as more than technical competence and will need to include new skills, ethical sensibilities and critical capacities.
The musical performance today is by Rosemary O’Malley andEstaban Flores, graduates of the Master’s in Traditional Music in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in UL. Rosemary is from Chicago and works in the European Centre for the Study of Hate in the School of Law in UL. Esteban, from France works in SAVINS music store in Limerick city. Rosemary and Esteban play a waltz by Brian O’Leary called I’ll Meet You On A Day That Never Ends and a reel called Kit O’Connor.

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Liam Maquet as their special guest. Liam Maquet is an Assistant Professor in Technology Education in the School of Education and an EPI·STEM Affiliate. Liam’s most recent resource on polymers for engineering teachers and students can be found in the Engineering section of our EPI·STEM Academy of STEM Teachers (https://epistem.ie/resources/). Here we regularly upload free research-led CPD resources for teachers to adapt in their classroom and school contexts.
In the podcast today, Liam recalls his experiences growing up in Ardara in County Donegal and going to St Columba’s Comprehensive School in nearby Glenties. Liam speaks to the fishing and weaving lifestyles and their impact on the culture and heritage of the area. During his teen years, Liam designed a working loom using a process of reverse engineering from an older wooden loom and today continues to enjoy weaving on this loom whenever he visits Donegal.
This rich background was inspirational in shaping Liam’s passion for teaching and research in engineering, graphics and technology. In the University of Limerick, Liam not only completed an undergraduate teacher education degree in this area but was enabled to remain on as a university teacher to influence the next generation of student teachers in these subjects.
Currently, Liam Maquet is in the final phase of his PhD study in Technology Education exploring productive pedagogies that enable the teaching of spatial reasoning, skills and spatial intelligence. His research is undertaken in the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) under the supervision of Dr Jeff Buckley and Dr Ronan Dunbar from TUS and Dr Sheryl Sorby from the US.
In the podcast, Liam teases out the complexity of his research problem and the multiple approaches to framing this teaching and learning problem, especially from an intersectional perspective of gender, social class, race and ethnicity. Finding a productive framework that holds the tensions in play clearly matters, given that engineering and technology education aim to make a difference to the public-interest and sustainability needs of a future-oriented economy, society and environment.
The music today is performed by Aisling Kearns, from Castlebar and a third-year student in the BA in World Music in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. Here Aishling plays a piece written by the contemporary traditional composer, Liz Carroll from Chicago, called ‘The Island of Woods’.

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine SimmiePhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Eamonn Stack Mulvihill as their special guest. Eammon is an Associate Teacher in the School of Education at the University of Limerick (UL) and an EPI∙STEM affiliate. Eamonn is from Moyvane in North Kerry. Eamonn explains how his interest in Engineering and STEM subjects began with his family, in his early years in the Comprehensive Secondary School in Tarbert and later through completion of an engineering teacher educationdegree in the School of Education in UL.
Today, Eamonn is teaching engineering topics to teacher education students in the School of Education in UL and completing a PhD study in the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) under the supervision of Dr Clodagh Reid, Dr Rónán Dunbar and Dr Richard Kimbell (UK). Eamonn is studying integrated-STEM for students and teachers in post-primary schools in Ireland. This is a topic of national and international interest in an increasingly technological world.STEM education, and integrated-STEM education remain a contested question in the literature and a live policy issue in national reports – especially in relation to the post-primary sector. How to do this integration of the four subject matter areas well, Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Technology for secondary school pupils and teachers is the live issue today and requires deciding on which lenses need to be brought to bear on the topic. Here Eamonn touches ontwo of these lenses, such as, the interdisciplinary lens and the culture-ethics-gender lens.
Eamonn is deeply interested in social justice, on democratising knowledge and the value of social outreach from the university to make a real difference in community life. His podcast with Dr Dan O’Sullivan from the School ofEducation entitled ‘ON THE MARGINS’ does just that. The podcast provides a platform for people on the margins to have a voice (e.g. prisoners, travellers), to challenge mainstream biases while aiming for a social celebration ofdifference, plurality and diversity rather than seeking to assimilate everyone inside some unified pedagogy of indifference.
We conclude today with a poem read and composed by Aisling Kearns, a 3rd year student in the BA in World Music in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in UL. This original poem, called Déanta Briste was published in 2025 in the collection of contemporary poems called The Story Thursday Book 50 by the Limerick Arts Office to celebrate their 50th Anniversary.

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine SimmiePhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Manus McDyer as their special guest. Manus McDyer is a University Teacher in technology education in the School of Education and an EPI∙STEM Affiliate with expertise in teaching student teachers’ subjects, such as, engineering, process technology, graphics and design & technology.
In the EPI·STEM podcast today, Manus shares his passionfor teaching and research in technology education and explains how he was drawn to exploring the variety of attributes and expertise of designers across different livelihoods. Manus hails from Glenties in Co. Donegal, an area famous for fiddle players and a strong creative and musical tradition in traditional music and culture.
Manus first began his journey into technology education when he selected engineering and graphics, in junior cycle and senior cycle in his local comprehensive school. Later, he achieved a first-class honour, grade 1, in a four-yearundergraduate Bachelor-in-Technology-Education (B Tech Ed) degree in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in the School of Education at UL.
Manua Mc Dyer works today as a University Teacher in Technology Education in the School of Education (UL) and is currently completing his PhD study in Technology Education. His PhD supervisors include Dr Jeff Buckley, Dr Ronan Dunbar, and Dr Niall Seery from the Technological University of theShannon (TUS), and Dr Niekie Blom from the School of Education in UL.
Manus is deeply interested in researching the topic ofdesign and deign thinking in technology education from multiple directions. His doctoral study draws from grounded theory as the most suitable approach to mapping this complex ontological and epistemic puzzle. Manus’ study is already yielding interesting findings into how best to support learners with productive pedagogies, including how best to include the technical, creative, affective and reflective dimensions. 
Manus McDyer continues to avail of new learning andnetworking opportunities, including engaging with the touchstone of research to better support his teaching of technology education and at the same time he regularly presents at national and international research conferences intechnology and STEM education, including in Ireland, UK, Canada, China and Sweden.
​​​The music selection today is performed by Eoghan Collins,from Newport, Co. Tipperary, a first-year student in the BA in World Music in The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at UL. Eoghan is a singer, songwriter and guitarist. Here he performs an original composition called ‘Refugee Woman’.
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