Rachel Gough

Dr Rachel Gough is a writer, lecturer, and researcher based in University College Cork. She is engaged in interdisciplinary research on climate and sustainability and lectures on film theory, video game theory, and national cinema. Her research explores the intersections of ecological representation, hauntology, and postcolonial theory.

She is the co-founder of Haunted Futures, an interdisciplinary research network that hosts annual conferences and provides a platform for rigorous intellectual debate on themes of Hauntology. 

Dr Gough is a researcher at the Sustainability Institute at University College Cork, working on the CLIMATUDE project—an engaged research initiative aimed at understanding Irish public attitudes, beliefs, and values around climate change.

She has consulted for several Irish environmental charities, contributing to the development of Media Action Plans designed to raise public awareness of biodiversity and environmental legislation in Ireland. She is a member of the Estudios Irlandeses editorial board and she is the Public Relations Officer for Women in Research Ireland.

She is a published writer. Her fiction has been broadcast as part of the Short Works programme on BBC Radio 4.  It has been published in Outpost, Bealtaine, The National Flash Fiction Anthology, and Best Small Fictions. Her poetry has been published in Quarryman and is forthcoming in One Good Day. In 2021 her short story ‘December 25th 2022’ was shortlisted for Best Short Story at the Wild Atlantic Words Festival. In 2022 she received the Editor Choice Award from the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology for her piece ‘Trout Prince’. In the same year she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2025, she was awarded first place in the flash fiction category at the Write by the Sea Literary Festival.

Dr Gough was awarded the Lord Puttnam Scholarship in 2023 in recognition of excellence across research, creative practice, and community outreach. In 2024, she received the CACSSS Creative Connections Project award. In 2025 she and her colleague Dr Ellen Scally were receipients of the Collective Social Futures Fund.