Helen Russell

Helen Russell is a Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute and is head of the Social Research Division. She holds a D.Phil. in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Before joining the ESRI in 1998 she was a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Her research covers a range of inter-connecting issues relating to employment, equality and social inclusion. 

Helen co-leads a programme of research on equality and discrimination in Ireland between the ESRI and IHREC. This research addresses inequalities across the range of grounds covered by equality legislation such as ethnicity, gender, age and disability.  Topics include:  monitoring economic and social rights in Ireland; and the equality impact of the pandemic. 

She is a  joint co-ordinator of a research programme on children and young people based on the Growing Up in Ireland study. Her research within the programme has covered topics such as caregiving by young adults; housing adequacy and child outcomes; fathers/child relationship and child outcomes and the dynamics of child poverty.

Helen’s research on poverty and social inclusion includes studies on intergenerational poverty in Ireland; poverty measurement, and youth unemployment. 

Helen is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and is a member of a number of policy advisory groups including the Equality Budgeting Expert Advisory Group for the Department of Public Expenditure.