Olive McCarthy

Dr. Olive McCarthy is a senior lecturer with the Department of Food Business and Development and Director of the Centre for Co-operative Studies at UCC. Her research has been conducted mainly into credit unions and related issues, as well as the role of co-operatives in agriculture and food, on which she has published widely. She graduated with a BComm in 1994, an MSc in 1996 and a PhD in 2005. Her PhD research involved an analysis of the relationship between member participation and organisational effectiveness in credit unions. She holds a PG Cert in Teaching and Learning. Olive was appointed to the statutory Credit Union Advisory Committee (CUAC) by the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure Reform, Paschal Donohue, in September 2018, having previously served on the CUAC from 2005 to 2009. She was also appointed to the CIRIEC International Scientific Commission in 2018 and to the Research Advisory Board of the Centre for Community Finance Europe in 2017. She is the academic director of the MSc in Co-operative and Social Enterprise by online learning, co-director of the MSc in Co-operatives, Agri-Food and Sustainable Development.