Owen Douglas

Post-Doctoral Researcher, Environmental Policy, University College Dublin
Owen Douglas is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2007 with a B.A. (Mod.) in Economic and Social Studies and is a fully qualified planner having obtained a Masters in Regional and Urban Planning in University College Dublin (UCD) in 2009. He also holds a PhD in Planning and Environmental Policy from UCD. His research interests centre on the areas of spatial planning, sustainable development and population health and well-being. His work has been disseminated at a range of international and national conferences and is published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals including Cities, Environment International, the Journal of Urban Design, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment and the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.

Owen is currently employed as the Post-Doctoral Researcher on the Noise-Health project (www.noise-health.com) which is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (Ireland) and led by Professor Enda Murphy. The objective of Noise-Health is to assess the relationship between exposure to transportation noise (road, air and rail) and population health outcomes in an international and national context and identify policy recommendations and integration pathways for considering noise in various strands of public policy. Immediately prior to this, Owen was the Post-Doctoral Researcher on the Eco-Health project (www.ecohealth.ie) which was funded jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and Health Service Executive (Ireland) and led by Prof. Mark Scott and Dr Mick Lennon. The project (2016-2018) explored the health benefits of ecosystems services as a means to supply evidence and planning and design tools for developing health promoting environments or 'healthy places' across the life-course. He worked previously (2014-2016) as a Research Assistant and Post-Doctoral Researcher on the IRC funded OASIS Project led by Dr Enda Murphy. This research was concerned with the optimisation of strategic noise mapping and population exposure estimation for meeting the requirements of the European Noise Directive.

In his PhD research, Owen investigated issues of sustainable development and quality of life in the contemporary urban environment. This research was supervised by Dr Paula Russell and Professor Mark Scott and was funded for four years through the UCD PhD Programme in Sustainable Development, an Irish Research Council (IRC) Graduate Research Education Programme. In 2011, Owen spent six months as a visiting scholar in the School of Planning and Regional Development at Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada as part of the Megapolitan project, funded by the Canada-European Union Program for Co-operation in Higher Education, Training and Youth. In the summer of 2008, he was employed as an intern in the Planning Inspectorate of An Bord Pleanála (the Irish planning appeals board).