Mark Boyle is currently Professor of Geography at Maynooth University in Ireland. He has served as Head of the Department of Geography at Maynooth, Director of the Irish National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (Maynooth), and Director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place at the University of Liverpool. His research interests are in geographic thought, de-industrialized cities and urban renewal, and geography, scholar policy activism and public policy.  He has published extensively in these areas.