Katriona O'Sullivan

Katriona O'Sullivan is an Irish author, professor, and advocate for educational access whose memoirs document an extraordinary journey from poverty, addiction, and teenage motherhood to academic achievement and national prominence. Raised in a home marked by addiction and abuse, she entered Trinity College Dublin through the access programme as a mature student, eventually earning a PhD in Psychology. She is now a professor at Maynooth University and directs the National Centre for Inclusive Higher Education. Her debut memoir Poor, which won Biography of the Year and Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, tells the raw, powerful story of growing up in deprivation and fighting her way to education and self-determination. Her second memoir, Hungry, is a fierce exploration of how trauma, class, and gender shape women's relationships with their bodies, tracing her journey through disordered eating, dangerous weight-loss treatments, and the slow process of self-acceptance. O'Sullivan's STEM Passport for Inclusion programme has supported over ten thousand young people from underserved communities into higher education. Her audiobooks and books offer listeners and readers unflinching, courageous memoir that refuses to look away from pain while insisting on the possibility of transformation.