Dr James Hanrahan is the director of the UNWTO Atlantic Sustainable Tourism Observatory Ireland and STORYATU. He has been a Sustainable tourism lecturer and researcher at ATU for over 20 years. He has lectured in higher education across Ireland, New Zealand, Hawaii, Bulgaria, California, and Britain. One of James key strengths is postgraduate supervision and he has supervised many PhDs to completion in wide range of topics such as: sustainable tourism management, sustainable tourism indicators, measuring and monitoring tourism carbon footprint, tourism entrepreneurship, event management and biosecurity.

Currently he is supervising PhDs in sustainable tourism and AI, supply chain management, circular tourism and smart digital solutions for net zero destinations. James has worked on many European-funded projects including the Interreg Atlantic Areas project on Polycentric Tourism and the Interreg Europe project on Tourism as a Service: a 360 tourism experience. Prior to his academic career he worked as a tour guide, tour operator, tourism manager and, tourism consultant.