About SKE

Meet Siobhan Kelleher.

Multi-award-winning clinical education specialist, thought leader, coach and founder of SKE. She has spent her career pushing the profession to be better every day and built an institute to teach it.

Registered Dental Hygienist MSc PMC PgDip Positive Health Award-winning educator Facilitator Teaching qualification
Her story

From the surgery chair to the lecture stage.

Siobhan qualified as a dental hygienist and never stopped learning. Over time, she began to realise there was more going on with her patients’ health than oral disease alone. She wanted to understand the person behind the patient, so she went back to study it.

With a master’s in personal and management coaching and a postgraduate diploma in positive health, Siobhan is now a clinical support specialist working with leading dental companies, presenting nationally and internationally, and contributing to industry-leading publications.

Along the way, she noticed the same gap she had once felt herself: brilliant clinical training, but almost nothing about the human skills that make it land. SKE is her answer – where oral-health science, Lifestyle medicine, positive psychology and coaching finally sit in one place.

“Change is a doorway to a better you.”

Qualifications & recognition

The credentials behind the courses

RDH

Registered Dental Hygienist

Qualified & registered with the Irish Dental Council

MSc

Master’s in Personal & Management Coaching

Advanced coaching & behaviour change

PgD

PgDip Positive Health

Positive psychology & wellbeing science

Multi-award-winning

20+ industry awards for education & practice

Facilitator

Combined with teaching

Clinical support specialist

Advising leading dental companies

What SKE stands for

Three beliefs that shape everything.

Better every day

Small, honest improvements compound. We teach for the long game, not the quick fix.

The whole person

Teeth sit inside a life. Real care sees the human in the chair, and the human in the coat.

Evidence with warmth

Rigorous science delivered with kindness  because how you say it is part of whether it works.

The Faculty

Meet the people behind SKE

A small, hand-picked team of clinicians and educators who help bring every programme to life.

Siobhan Kelleher

Director and Educator, SKE

Siobhan is the founder and director of SKE, leading the organisation's education programmes across Ireland, the UK, and internationally. She holds an MSc, along with diplomas in Positive Health and Dental Hygiene, facilitation and a teaching qualification.

Elaine Tilling 

Internal assessor and lecturer

Elaine qualified as a dental hygienist in the Royal Air Force in 1982 and later spent 22 years as clinical lead on TePe Oral Hygiene's UK senior leadership team. She now sits on NICE's smoking cessation expert panel and writes on behavioural change and oral health. She is a Clinical Education Specialist.

Fiona Ellwood 

Education course creator

Director of Dental Education & Associate Professor, University of Lincoln. Fiona holds academic and clinical roles across several UK institutions, including Honorary Senior Lecturer at Portsmouth and education associate for the GDC. She also serves as Executive Director of the Society of British Dental Nurses and champions several dentistry wellbeing and advocacy groups.

Kathryn Mayo

Dental Hygienist & Clinical Educator

Kathryn has over 30 years of clinical experience and has taught dental hygiene at the Universities of Leeds and Manchester. A published author on periodontal disease and preventive dentistry, she brings both extensive clinical expertise and a former student's perspective to supporting SKE learners.

Kathryn has a special interest in implant research and lectures extensively in this area, sharing her knowledge and experience with dental professionals nationally and internationally.

Haley Gannon 

Dental Nurse & Education Coordinator Manager

Haley qualified as a Dental Nurse from University College Cork in 2016, graduating top of her class, and has since built 13 years of dental industry experience. She now works part-time as an HSE dental nurse while coordinating and managing the course delivery alongside Siobhan Kelleher at SKE.

Lisa Pearson

Dental Hygienist and clinical educator

Lisa has extensive experience working across multidisciplinary and specialist dental practices, including Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin. She now splits her time between general private practice and specialist periodontal practice.

With a special interest in research and evidence-based dentistry, Lisa completed the Diploma in Oral & Positive Health with SKE, further developing her knowledge of the connection between oral health and wider health. She brings a wealth of clinical experience and a strong passion for continued learning to her work with SKE.

Learn with Siobhan.

Eduqual approved courses and oral-health programmes – all in one place.