Our People Profiles | Emeritus Professor Pat Brereton
Emeritus Professor Pat Brereton
Emeritus Professor Pat Brereton
A retired member of staff, Pat Brereton retired in October 2023 after 24 years working in DCU's School of Communications in various academic and leadership roles.
Emeritus Professor Pat Brereton worked for over 24 years in the School of Communications at Dublin City University (DCU) Ireland, as well as serving as Head of School, Associate Dean of Research and Executive Dean for a term. His books include Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in Contemporary American Cinema (2005); Continuum Guide to Media Education (2001), the Historical Dictionary of Irish Cinema (2007) with Roddy Flynn, Smart Cinema: DVD Add-ons and New Audience Pleasures (2012); Environmental Ethics and Film (2016); Environmental Literacy: Digital Media Audiences (2019), Essential Concepts of Environmental Communication: An A-Z Guide (2022) and has co-edited a reader titled Ireland and the Climate Crisis (2020).
He remains committed to a broad range of interdisciplinary environmental study and research, focused on Ireland and abroad. Currently he is working on an oral history of farmers in the Midlands where he was born.
He remains a co-director of the Research Centre Climate and Society which has had annual conferences with keynotes from President of Ireland Michael D Higgins and most recently Mary Robinson which focused on intergenerational justice, as well as creating podcasts and reviews. Working across numerous projects, including environmental literacy, evaluation of the effectiveness of broadcast eco-documentaries, alongside developing training programs for charities like Concern and the Department of the Environment, he is happy to repurpose his academic writing and research to wider audiences.
As second term member of Royal Irish Academy’s committee on Climate Change and Environmental Science and a co-opted director of Green Foundation Ireland as well as helping to set up ScreenGreening to ensure a reduction of greenhouse gasses in the Irish audio-visual industry through the introduction of the Albert carbon calculator – he remains active focused around greening media, education and activism. He is always open to new initiatives and working with various stakeholders to help address the climate crisis into the future.