Tom Maguire

Tom Maguire, Professor of Contemporary Drama and Performance, is the Head of the School of Arts & Humanities. He was born and brought up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, attending Holy Family Primary School and then St. Malachy’s College.

He completed an MA (Hons) in English Language and Literature at the University of Edinburgh and then a doctorate in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. His first lecturing post was at Liverpool Hope where he went on to serve as Head of the Department of Drama and Theatre Studies, before joining Ulster University in 1999.

Tom was elected as Chair of the Standing Conference of University Drama Departments (now Drama HE) for two terms, and was made an Honorary Member in recognition of his service in 2016.

Tom has been a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College since 2014, serving as a peer reviewer and member of moderating panels for a number of award schemes. He has been a peer reviewer for a wide range of academic journals and publishers.

Tom was made a Visiting Professor of Hubei Normal University in 2023.

Tom has served as the Chair of the Board of Big Telly Theatre Company since 2008 and has been a Board Member of Young at Art since 2020.

Tom's research engages with the relationships between performance, identity, place and power particularly in Britain and Ireland. He has published widely in the fields of Irish theatre and Scottish theatre, as well as in the areas of Theatre for Young Audiences and Storytelling Performance. He has also undertaken a number of heritage research projects, including the collection Heritage after Conflict: Northern Ireland, co-edited with Professor Elizabth Crooke in 2018.

From 2021-24, he served as Chair of the Board of the International Theatre for Young Audiences Research Network (ITYARN), one of the constituent networks of ASSITEJ, the international association for theatre for young audiences. He is a co-founder of the Talking TYA research network in Ireland. He is a research advisor to the ASSITEJ project, Building Collective Resilience, funded by Creative Europe, 2021-24.

He is a co-founder of the Talking TYA research network in Ireland and co-organises its symposia and conferences in collaboration with external partners such as Young at Art, Belfast and Baboro International Children's Festival, Galway.

He has served as an External Examiner for doctoral projects at Dublin City University, University of Cape Town, Exeter University, and NUI Galway, as well as an Internal Examiner for projects at Ulster University.

Tom teaches on the BA (Hons) Drama programme and in postgraduate programmes in Museums and Heritage Studies. Within the Drama programme he teaches research-led modules in Storytelling and Performance and Theatre for Young Audiences, as well as contributing to modules in acting, directing and applied theatre.

He has delivered workshops using role-play for professional development for programmes in Business Studies, Social Work and Law and delivered professional development workshops as part of Ulster's Researcher Development Programme.

Tom was recognised as a Distinguished Teaching Fellow of Ulster University in 2005 and received the UUSU Teaching Excellence Award for the Faculty of Arts in 2016. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

He has extensive experience of quality assurance and enhancement of learning and teaching. From 2000-2004, he served as Steering Group Member and Fieldworker of the Assessing Groupwork project funded under HEFCE's FDTL 3 scheme. He is currently working as a member of a Task and Finish Group on the Assessment of Groupwork at Ulster. 

He has been an External Examiner on taught programmes at  University of Chester, Rose Bruford College, University of Wolverhampton, Edge Hill UNiveristy College and Liverpool John Moore's.

As well as serving on 13 internal (re)validation panels, 9 of which as Chair, Tom has been an external on quality assurance processes for taught programmes at ATU Sligo, University of Chester, Coventry University, University of Lincoln, University of Worcester, and University of Chichester.

In 2023, he served on the Advisory Group for the review of the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Drama, Dance and Performance .

Tom has an extensive track record of supervising doctoral research projects in drama, museum and heritage studies and in interdisciplinary projects involving nursing, sociology and social work, for example. He  welcomes inquiries in particular for projects on Theatre for Young Audiences, Heritage and Irish theatre.