About • Inclusive education • Leadership
Conor Mc Guckin
Director, Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID)
Associate Professor of Educational Psychology
School of Education, Trinity College Dublin
Conor Mc Guckin is a psychologist whose research and leadership focus on removing barriers to learning, participation, belonging, and progression. His work connects people’s experiences of education and exclusion with changes in policy, professional practice, and educational provision, particularly for people with intellectual disabilities and special educational needs.
01 · Inclusive higher education
Inclusive Education and TCPID
As Director of the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID), Conor provides academic and strategic leadership for inclusive higher education. His leadership brings together accredited learning, accessible teaching and assessment, student voice, work readiness, internships, and pathways into meaningful paid employment.
Through collaboration with students, graduates, families, colleagues, national networks, and business partners, he works to strengthen opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities to learn, contribute, and belong within university and working life.
02 · Research and teaching
Connecting research with educational policy and practice
Conor’s research spans inclusive higher education, intellectual disability, Universal Design (UD), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), transitions to employment, and student belonging. His wider scholarship addresses bullying and cyberbullying, early intervention, well-being, and educational opportunities for people with rare diseases, including 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.
He co-authored Adopting a UDL Attitude Within Academia (Routledge, 2024), examining inclusion across institutional culture, policy, teaching, assessment, and student experience. His research involves international collaboration and the translation of evidence into educational and professional practice.
Since joining Trinity in 2008, Conor has contributed to undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral education. He has led the School of Education’s M.Ed. suite, co-developed the M.Ed. in Psychology of Education, and supported doctoral researchers through supervision, research collaboration, and publication mentoring. His Ph.D. examined school bullying in Northern Ireland.
03 · Leadership and public engagement
Contributing to institutional and public change
Conor contributes to Trinity’s work on Access, Belonging, and Inclusion, including the Strategic Working Group on Extending Access and the UDL Advisory Group. His wider service includes school governance, professional societies, research evaluation, and advocacy with rare-disease communities.
He is a co-founding director of Behavioural Insights, translating psychological and educational research into consultancy, evaluation, and training. Previously, he was a co-founding director of Selection by Design (SxD), the leading training and consultancy in psychometrics (e.g., BPS Occupational Test User: Ability, Personality).
04 · Professional standing
Professional recognition
Conor is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and the Psychological Society of Ireland, a Chartered Scientist with The Science Council (UK), and an Associate Fellow of both psychological societies (AFBPsS; A.F.Ps.S.I.).
05 · Academic profiles and further information