Professor Maggie O’Neill is Head and Professor in Sociology at University College, Cork. Before taking up a chair at University College, Cork, she was Chair in Sociology & Criminology in the Department of Sociology at the University of York, and Professor in Criminology at the University of Durham and Principal of Ustinov College. She describes herself as an inter-disciplinary scholar. Her PhD in Sociology explored the transformative possibilities for conducting feminist participatory action research with sex workers and was awarded in 1996. The majority of the empirical research she has conducted uses participatory action research, ethnographic and biographical methods and participatory arts. She has a long history of working with artists and community groups to conduct arts based research-working together to create change; and social justice is at the core of her work.