Gender, the arts in education, teacher identity, teacher-artist partnership. theatre for young audiences, performance, narrative inquiry, and arts-based research methods.

Dr Dorothy Morrissey is a Lecturer in Drama Education at MIC, where she is also Faculty of Education EDI and Interculturalism Lead. In 2025, she successfully led the Faculty's Application for the Athena Swan Bronze Award, and is currently Co-PI (with Dr Hannagh McGinley, MIC) on the Department of Education and Youth commissioned research and evaluation of the STAR (Supporting Traveller and Roma) strand of BLAST (Bringing Live Arts to Schools and Teachers) and Creative Clusters under the Traveller and Roma Education Strategy (TRES). In 2024, she completed  the Department of Education commissioned evaluation of 'I am Creative', a national pilot initiative involving collaborations with artists in special school settings, and her Department of Education commissioned evaluation of Creative Clusters was published in 2023. Dorothy founded MIC FemFest, an annual inter-faculty festival marking women's experiences and achievements, and successfully coordinated MIC's Theatre Artist in Residence Programme from 2013-2025. She is a member of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) Arts Education Development Group, a founding member of the All of Ireland Talking TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) Research Network, a member of the (National) Arts and Culture Research in Education Repository Committee, and a member of MIC's Research Committee. Dorothy previously worked as a provider of CPD for teachers, as a primary teacher in mainstream and special schools, and as an adult education tutor (in Literature and Women's Studies) at University College Cork.