About

I am the Head of the School of Science at the University of Derby. My responsibilities include oversight of teaching and research in the school; my ambition is to continue evolving all subject areas within the school to further strengthen the interactions between teaching, research, and knowledge exchange. 

Before joining the University of Derby, I worked at Liverpool John Moores University, where I held various roles, but most recently I had two concurrent positions, that of Biosciences Subject Head, and Associate Dean for Global Engagement. As Bioscience Subject Head, I was responsible for the students, academic staff, and programmes within this subject area. As Associate Dean for Global Engagement, I was responsible for all international activity within my Faculty, including international student recruitment, TNE partnerships, student/staff mobility and international collaborative research. 

I am passionate about the student experience and EDI, and at Liverpool John Moores University I led on various student experience enhancement initiatives, including the development of the institutional Continuous Monitoring and Enhancement process. I also led the Organisation and Culture Sub-Group for the School's successful Athena SWAN Bronze submission.

Teaching responsibilities

I have teaching responsibilities in the general area of vertebrate physiology, and more specifically in cancer biology. 

Professional interests

I am passionate about improving the quality and standards of higher education, and in my previous institution, one of my roles was that of Associate Dean for Quality Assurance and Enhancement. This passion has more recently led to my role as Senior Accreditation Assessor for the Royal Society of Biology (RSB). As a Senior Accreditation Assessor, I chair RSB accreditation events, in which we evaluate the quality of bioscience-related educational programmes at HE Institutions. 

Research interests

I have two main research interests. Firstly, I am interested in understanding the role of the tumour microenvironment in cancer development and progression, specifically gastric cancer. More recently, and knowing how stressful some students find assessments that involve oral presentations, I have become interested in the role of exercise interventions in managing their stress levels. 

Membership of professional bodies

• Member of the Royal Society of Biology (MRSB)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)

Qualifications

Undergraduate qualifications

• BSc (Hons) Applied Biochemistry, with Industrial Placement Year, Liverpool John Moores University

Postgraduate qualifications

• Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Liverpool John Moores University

Research qualifications

• PhD - ‘Epithelial-Mesenchymal Signalling: Role of Matrix Metalloproteinase-7’, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Liverpool

Recent conferences

• British Council Going Global Conference, November 2023, Edinburgh, Scotland
• British Council East Asia Education Week, February 2024, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Experience in industry

I co-chair the School of Science's Industrial Advisory Board. 

International experience

In my previous role as Associate Dean for Global Engagement, I was fortunate to travel to various countries, including China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Bahrain, India, Sri Lanka, Norway, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Many of these visits involved developing TNE partnerships, including initial business development discussions, due-diligence visits, and chairing collaborative validation events across a variety of subject areas, including engineering, business and nursing.

In the summer of 2023, as part of a student mobility programme, I visited Kuala Lumpur (KL) in Malaysia for the Inaugural Student Summer Conference, which was funded by the British Council as part of the UK Malaysia University Consortium. This conference involved students from both UK and Malaysian Universities, working together on Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) challenge projects. They continued to work collaboratively on these challenge projects in KL, before pitching their solutions before a panel, and I was lucky enough to be one of the panel judges.