MsJennifer Kennedy

Dr Jennifer Kennedy joined RCSI in 2025 as a Lecturer in Leadership and Management, jointly appointed to the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences and the Graduate School of Healthcare Management. Her research examines how people seek, share, withhold and learn knowledge in complex professional settings, with a particular focus on healthcare. She is especially interested in how trust, distrust, and vulnerability influence whether professionals seek and learn complex knowledge.

Her current research explores how healthcare professionals access tacit knowledge during diagnostic reasoning and other complex decisions; how people experience and manage vulnerability in workplace relationships; and how felt trust, emotional demands and digital ways of working affect employee wellbeing. Her recent healthcare publications in Health Services Research and Reproductive Health examine telemedicine, trust and the disclosure of accurate information in reproductive healthcare. She also has a research interest in the use of immersive technologies to develop leadership and transferable professional skills.

Prior to joining RCSI, Dr Kennedy was an Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour at DCU Business School, where she taught at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at DCU’s Irish Institute of Digital Business, coordinating research across externally funded projects for the HSE, .IE and the Department of Rural and Community Development. She was also Research Lead for the Colm Delves Leadership Experience, Ireland’s first dedicated extended-reality classroom, where she contributed to the design, delivery and evaluation of virtual and augmented reality learning experiences.

Dr Kennedy holds a BA in Business and Economics from Trinity College Dublin and an MSc and PhD in Human Resource Management from Dublin City University. Before entering academia, she spent ten years working as a human resource management practitioner. Her applied research has contributed to more than 50 government and commissioned research reports, with recommendations incorporated into public policy.