People

Centre Directors

John Mitchell is a Professor in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, UCL. He is currently Co-Director of UCL’s Centre for Engineering Education and is also Vice-Dean Education in the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences.

From 2012 to 2016 he was on secondment to lead a major curriculum review and development project across the UCL Engineering faculty. The project has involved the revision of the majority of the undergraduate programmes to include increased project based and multi-discipinary activities. Previously, he has led projects to introduce problem-based and scenario based learning into the electronic engineering curriculum at UCL. The results of this work has been published in a number of international journals and conferences.

He is a Principal Fellow of the HEA, recipient of a UCL Provost’s Teaching Award and part of the team that won the 2018 Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence.

In 2016 he completed an MA in Teaching and Learning in Higher and Professional Education at the UCL Institute of Education.

Professor David Guile

David Guile is Professor of Education and Work, Co-Director of UCL’s Centre for Engineering Education and the Institute of Education’s Centre for Post 14 Education and Work.

His primary research interests are in professional, vocational and workplace learning, including apprenticeship, internship, and interprofessional activity.

Currently, David is preparing with colleagues from WZB Berlin, Berlin Free University and the Copenhagen Business School an invited research proposal on behalf of the VW Foundation’s Artificial Intelligence and the “Society of the Future” programme, on the relationship between AI, skill and work.

His most recent publications are The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training, edited with Lorna Unwin (2019), Guile, D. (2019) The concept of “recontextualization”: implications for professional, vocational & workplace learning, Learning, Culture and Social Interactionhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2019.100343, and Guile, D. & Wilde, R. (2018) Articulating value for clients: An ‘immaterial’ practice-based perspective on working and learning in a global engineering consultancy firm. Journal of Education and Work 31 (5&6): 519-532.

Centre Manager

Helen Bhandari: Helen manages the operations of the Centre, working with the co-Directors to support all aspects of activity, and is responsible for the Centre's administration.

Centre Researchers

Dr Diana Martin: Diana Adela Martin is a Senior Research Fellow. Diana has a BA in philosophy from the University of Bucharest and a PhD in engineering education from TU Dublin. Her areas of expertise are engineering ethics, sustainability, responsible innovation and global perspectives in engineering education. Diana also has experience developing teaching materials and case studies on engineering ethics and sustainability.

Diana is the co-chair of the Ethics SIG, a board member of REEN - Research in Engineering Education Network, as well as an Associate Editor for The European Journal of Engineering Education and Science and Engineering Ethics. Between 2008-2016, Diana was the co-founder of the Romanian educational NGO Link Education and Practice. Diana is also interested in research and educational policies, and has collaborated with the European Commission DG Research & Innovation as a founding member of Euraxess-Voice of Researchers (2012-2016).

Diana was a guest speaker at the invitation of The European Commission DG Research & Innovation, Euraxess Japan & Delegation of EU to Japan, the European Forum Alpbach, Délégation Wallonie Bruxelles a Bucarest, Engineers Ireland, University of Cambridge and the SATORI FP7 project on themes ranging from engineering ethics to social entrepreneurship and research policy.
Stephen Hunt: Stephen is a Research Fellow. Stephen studied for a PhD in psychology at UCL, and has worked in educational research, on projects such as Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE), and was a Research Fellow the Centre for Global Higher Education at UCL Institute of Education concentrating on alternative providers of higher education. Stephen has also conducted research in areas such as risk perception, trust, and risk communication.

IEP (Integrated Engineering Programme)

Professor Emanuela Tilley

Emanuela Tilley is Professor of Engineering Education and Director of the Integrated Engineering Programme at University College London, in London, United Kingdom. The Integrated Engineering Programme is an award winning teaching framework embedded in the learning experiences of undergraduate students across UCL Engineering to better prepare them for tackling future global challenges. Before becoming director, she lead the establishment of problem-based learning through the creation and implementation of IEP Challenges and Scenarios aimed at introducing and engaging first- and second-year students from across the faculty to experiential, research, team-based, interdisciplinary and authentic learning through engineering design opportunities. Emanuela came to UCL from industry having many years’ experience of working as an engineering project consultant in the built environment on interdisciplinary teams designing many of the world famous architectural buildings and masterplans that exist today.

Professor Tilley has established an international profile in the areas of leading curriculum design and development as well as operational and cultural change required to support and foster large scale and cross-disciplinary innovation in engineering education within higher education. Her current research interests includes building a sense of social responsibility in engineering students, skills development and problem-based learning experiences of engineering students; equity, diversity and inclusion in engineering education; and integrated approaches to engineering education.

She is a Board Director for SEFI (European Society of Engineering Education), School Governor and UCL Engineering Sponsor at Elutec Academy in southeast London and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA).

Lasharne Anderson

Senior Technology & Learning Administrator

Iva Burova

Lecturer (Teaching)

Matheus de Andrade

Lecturer (Teaching)

Riyad Joomun

Teaching & Learning Administrator

Molly Lavender-Rose

Senior Teaching & Learning Administrator

Dr Chika Nweke

Dr Chika Nweke obtained her undergraduate and PhD degrees from the department Biochemical Engineering, UCL, has since worked as a Lecturer (Teaching) in the department and oversees the IEP’s Design & Professional Skills module for the faculty. She is currently doing an MSc in Engineering and Education, which is a collaborative degree between the faculty of Engineering Science and UCL Institute of Education. She has published and presented at conferences in Engineering Education, with particular focus on the development of professional skills for engineering students. Her other research areas include chromatography and downstream processing in bioprocess engineering. She has recently been appointed as Deputy Director - Equality, Diversity & Inclusion and continually seeks to improve student and staff experiences in her department, as well as in the faculty. In 2019 she was awarded Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and is an active HEA mentor and assessor.

Dr Kate Roach

Kate’s main focus is in the design and support of skill development activities for UCL’s award-winning Integrated Engineering Programme which provides a set of learning experiences that cut across engineering disciplines at the undergraduate level.

Prior to this she lead on two large-scale modules that challenge undergraduate engineers to design technologies with social and ecological contexts in mind. Working with active pedagogies featuring teamwork, experiential and interdisciplinary learning, she designs processes that take students from an authentic, ‘wicked’ problem, usually framed in social or ecological terms, to a socio-technical design.

Kate originally studied life sciences and shifted to the social sciences in post-graduate research to study the impacts of scientific thought on popular culture. She is currently taking a lead on embedding Responsible Innovation and Sustainability across the IEP curricula.

Her research interests are in the pedagogies of sustainability and responsible innovation.

Dr Fiona Truscott

Dr Vivek Ramachandran

Vivek, a Lecturer (Teaching) and a learning scientist, is deeply committed to transforming engineering education through the integration of ethics and social justice principles, approached with empathy and reflection.

Following his bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering at NIT Calicut and Carnegie Mellon University, respectively, Vivek pursued a PhD in robotics and conducted postdoctoral research in engineering education at the Ecole Polytéchnique Fédérale de Lausanne. His diverse global experiences, living in Asia, Europe, and North America, have provided him with a unique perspective that has influenced his approach to research, teaching, and learning.

As a post-doctoral researcher, Vivek explored innovative methods for teaching engineering and computing ethics, utilizing generative AI, specifically deepfake videos, as a pedagogical tool. This research aimed to comprehend the impact of technology education and its ethical dimensions on students' moral reasoning and emotionality, contributing to the evolving field of engineering ethics instruction.

During his PhD, Vivek's research spanned multiple disciplines, including mechanics, materials, design, and human subject research. He developed novel wearable fabric-based haptic devices to assist individuals in learning motor skills applicable in rehabilitation and robotic teleoperation.

Throughout his academic journey, Vivek has remained dedicated to teaching and mentoring. He has closely collaborated with students in various capacities, including designing courses and immersive lab projects. His teaching approach emphasizes peer interaction, conceptual clarity, and aligning project objectives with students' skill development goals to ensure a meaningful learning experience. His objective is to establish a collaborative environment for students to discuss their emotional responses to the responsibilities of technology creators and promote a socially-conscious engineering mindset.

As a non-binary individual with dominant caste privilege, Vivek actively engages in social justice initiatives, including advocating against caste apartheid and supporting the sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples globally.

Faculty Learning Technology Team

Dr Anna Trostnikova: Faculty Learning Technology Lead
Ahmed Atteyeh: Faculty Learning Technologist
Kathleen Alston-Cole: Faculty Learning Technologist

Widening Participation

Professor Elpida Makrygianni MBE

Professor Elpida Makrygianni MBE, is the Head of Education Engagement at UCL Engineering. Elpida leads the UCL Engineering Engagement team in the design and delivery of STEM education and engagement programmes for children and young people. Her work focuses on working in partnership with government, industry and organisations in considering the diversity of young people and enabling participation of pupils from a broad range of abilities, backgrounds and levels of understanding to ensure inclusion, equality and real choice in STEM careers for all.

She is responsible for conceiving, delivering and implementing UCL Engineering’s 50:50 Engagement Strategy, creating a step change in the representation of girls and ethnic minority pupils on STEM Engagement programmes. The strategy has enabled participation of children and young people who would otherwise be excluded from STEM due to invisible social structures.

Holding degrees in engineering, computer science and economics, Elpida received her PhD in Artificial Intelligence Engineering before working as an academic, research fellow and consultant for the private, public and voluntary sectors. She has led and contributed to educational projects at the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, Google, IBM, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, UNESCO, European Commission, UK Department for Education, EngineeringUK, Royal Academy of Engineering, STEM Learning and many more.

In 2019, she was appointed as an honorary member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE). This honour was awarded by Her Majesty the Queen in recognition of Elpida’s services to education.

Dr Sophia Economides

Dr Sophia B. Economides is an Associate Professor (Teaching) at the UCL Faculty of Engineering Science. She is the lead for the Engineering Foundation Year programme at UCL East. She studied Electrical Engineering in Greece before doing a PhD in Microwave Electronics (KCL). She also has an MPhil (Cantab) in Technology Policy, as well as an MA in Online and Distance Education (OU).

Following her PhD, Dr Economides worked in the space industry for a few years before going back to work in academia. After seeing some of the difficulties mature students and students with disabilities had accessing higher education, she became a hands-on advocate for widening participation. She has worked with a variety of people from non-traditional backgrounds, supporting them to gain a university education and championing STEM careers. As the lead for the Engineering Foundation Year programme, Dr Economides believes that people from all backgrounds should have access to higher education.

Her research interests include equity, diversity and inclusion in engineering education, gender disparity in engineering education, education policy, curriculum design and assessment. Dr Economides is a Senior Fellow of the HEA.

Francesca Bowen-Watts

Senior Teaching & Learning Administrator, Engineering Foundation Year

Dr Natalie Wint

Natalie is a Lecturer (Teaching) on the Engineering Foundation Year programme at UCL East. She studied Physics with Medical Physics at Cardiff University before obtaining her MSc and EngD in Materials Engineering from Swansea University. Following that she spent time as a postdoctoral researcher at both the Ohio State University (USA) and Swansea University, before becoming the Head of the Engineering Foundation Year at Swansea University where she led a major programme change.

Her research interests include: the impact of the marketisation of HE on engineering education; interdisciplinary education and the needs of the future workplace; differences between engineering education and engineering practice; and EDI and widening participation within engineering education.
She is a Fellow of the HEA (FHEA), is involved in several SEFI Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and is co-host of the SEFI European Engineering Educators Podcast.

Dr Jumoke Oladejo

Dr Jumoke Oladejo has an MSc in Sustainable Energy Engineering and a PhD in Energy Technologies. She is a certified BREEAM and WELL accredited professional (AP), and an accredited fellow (FHEA) of the UK Advance HE.

She believes deeply in encouraging diversity and equal opportunities and is enthusiastic about supporting students and promoting inclusive and sustainable education systems globally, especially within the STEM field. For the past four years, she has taught on a wide range of courses in physics and engineering for foundation year students, as well as final year architecture and environmental engineering at a Sino-British University where she initiated various projects related to student support, online assessments, and multidisciplinary extracurricular programs. She is also a sustainability enthusiast and in the past three years has been involved in the inception and facilitation of a BRE certification training scheme on sustainability in the built environment with over 60 students accredited till date. Consequently, she was nominated and received multiple awards in 2022 for her achievements in enhancing student learning experience.

Her research and project interest includes peer-enhanced support, student-partnership models, inclusive and innovative assessments in engineering education, embedding careers and employability skills into curriculum development, as well as fostering interdisciplinary learning within HEIs for developing sustainable futures.

Costas Constantinou

Teaching & Learning Administrator, Engineering Foundation Year

Dr Eleni Katirtzoglou

Eleni, or Dr K as most of her students call her, is an Associate Fellow of the HEA and has a mathematics Ph.D. in Functional Analysis (Musielak-Orlicz spaces) from the University of Memphis. Eleni started her mathematical career as a researcher in the Basic Research Institute in the Mathematical Sciences (BRIMS) at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Bristol and then in the Department of Control Optimization and Stochastics at Delft University of Technology.

After completing a MSc in European Political Economy at LSE she dedicated her career in educating students who wanted to learn mathematics. Eleni held various educational roles at LSE, UCL and QMUL. Her contributions to mathematics education include the development of the round table model, an active-learning course design for teaching and learning mathematics that was successfully implemented to a number of courses at LSE. Her work has been recognized in teaching awards such as two LSE Excellence in Education Awards (2016 and 2021) and the LSESU Award for Innovative Teaching in 2016.

Consultancy Project

Dr Nikita Hari: Dr Nikita Hari is an Engineering academic with a decade of integrated global career record spanning industry and higher education. Her diverse experiences range from education and entrepreneurship to research and innovation in the engineering sector. Featured in the ‘Top 50 Women in Engineering in the UK’ (WES, 2017) and listed as a ‘Clinton Global Changemaker’ (2018), she is a global ambassador for Queen Elizabeth Prize in Engineering.

Nikita’s passion lies in innovation of engineering education – in particular, through developing an immersive, integrated, and inclusive engineering learning model based on engineering thinking. Her aspiration is to develop scalable, project-based engineering programmes with a focus on empathy, ethics, enterprise, and economics; based on issues of societal relevance. Recipient of Bringing Learning to Life award at the Dyson Institute, she led the transformation of the electronics education model by integrating academia & industry, designing a learning by doing module for developing skilled Engineers.

Nikita holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering as a Nehru Cambridge Scholar from the University of Cambridge and the Faculty for Future Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford. Nikita’s current research interest is focused on reimagining higher education to engineering for a sustainable world. A TEDx speaker, she has a good grounding in public speaking, mentoring and outreach.

Nikita is an invited consultant to various scientific and education advisory committees of government bodies, start-ups, and universities across the globe. Current major invited/elected roles: Co-Chair of the Independent Higher Education - Research & Innovation Network, Ambassador Council - QE Prize in Engineering, Engineering Professors’ Council – Research, Innovation & Knowledge Transfer Committee and STEM scholarship panel/advisory board – Proprep (global EdTech start-up).

PhD Students

Gigi Vinod

Gigi is currently a first year Ph.D. student focusing on the inclusion of artificial intelligence (AI) in engineering education to study the experiences of female and minority undergraduate students’ participation in both the US and the UK. She completed her bachelor’s in electrical engineering in her hometown at the University of Pittsburgh during the Spring of 2020. In order to console her long-term interests in working in academia, she decided to pursue a MSc in engineering and education at UCL’s Institute of Education the following academic year to learn more about how she could improve how engineering was taught to and accessed by underrepresented groups.
The definition of AI she is most interested in is one that defines AI as computing systems that are able to engage in human-like processes such as learning, adapting, synthesizing, self-correction and use of data for complex processing tasks. She wants to look into how AI in higher education classrooms is being perceived by female and minority students in a variety of ways from courses in robotics to machine learning as, currently, different universities are focusing on different aspects of AI technologies. As her research progresses, she hopes to incorporate a mixed methods approach. The definition of mixed methods that will used for this project will be the one that defines mixed methods as combining qualitative and quantitative data in a single study. She hopes her research helps educators and institutions alike better implement AI technologies as ethically and holistically as possible with a social justice framework in mind. She hopes through developing this project that she can contribute to more diverse and inclusive engineering education by understanding the role and impact of AI at both US and UK engineering institutions.

Luke Dokter

Luke Dokter started at UCL on the EdD programme in 2021. He lectures in geotechnical engineering at the Norwegian Defence University College in Oslo. Luke holds a B.Eng in Environmental Engineering from Australia and a M.Sc in Geosciences from the University of Oslo. He worked for several years with engineering projects in the humanitarian and development sector and eventually headed Engineers Without Borders Norway (EWB).
His interest in Engineering Education has been influenced by his experiences in the humanitarian sector, working with engineering students while at EWB and since 2017, being a practitioner at the Academy. His research will focus on building global compentancies in undergraduate engineers in Norway.

Elzavira Effendi

Elza's research focuses on the role of International NGOs towards fostering local efforts in improving urban sanitation in Indonesia. With a background working in an INGO for an urban sanitation programme, Elza is investigating a case of an INGO’s interventions, how it affect local processes in improving urban sanitation and ultimately how it translates into the outcomes of improved urban sanitation infrastructures and services provision. She uses the lens of collective learning, in particular, cultural-historical activity theory to understand her object of inquiry.

Kate Bellingham

With a first degree in physics and a Masters in electronics, Kate has been promoting opportunities for women in STEM, and more specifically engineering, for nearly 3 decades. While the percentage of undergraduate engineers who are female is slowly increasing in the UK, we lack insight into the disparity in gender balance between different universities. Kate is investigating where the women are studying, with particular interest in the influence of a university’s actions and circumstances on the gender balance on their courses.

Zeyi Liu

Zeyi is a full-time PhD student from China. She is interested in any inequities in STEM education and career, such as gender and class disparity. It is a common phenomenon in many countries that the pipeline leading to STEM career starts leaking after graduation, especially for women. Her PhD project focuses on the experiences and career choices of engineering students at universities in China. Specifically, how the intersectionality of gender and social economic status affects their career choice decisions after graduation. She is also interested in applying the term ‘science capital’ to a broader research background, including different countries, different subjects and different age groups.

Zeyi's British Educational Research Association (BERA) blogpost on 'Reflections on using western survey techniques in Chinese contexts' can be found on the BERA website.

Zeyi is a member in the editorial committee of a non-profit academic organisation, Eastern Higher Education Research (ETHER), which aims to provide research-informed content on key issues in higher education in non-English (such as Chinese) literature. She is keen to bridge knowledge communication and transfer between English and non-English academia.

Liu, Zeyi (2023) "Book Review Essay: Dreams of Flight: The Lives of Chinese Women Students in the West," Journal of International Women's Studies: Vol. 25: Iss. 1, Article 27.
Available at the Journal of International Women's Studies

Tommy Piyatamrong

Tommy is a second-year Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. David Guile and Dr. Jay Derrick. His research focuses on machine learning algorithms, applications, and complications on workplace and organization management; from the perspectives of human learning, work, and skill adaptations in working organizations undergoing digital transformations.

With a first-degree background in software engineering and experiences working on IT Consultancy projects, Tommy is keen on the developments and impact (from different perspectives) of society's computing and software technologies, which led to the current research interest. There exists a conception in the business world that artificial intelligence and machine learning applications will transform and automate the human workforce. However, historical stages of transformations suggest that technological advancements engage workforces in recontextualization perspectives. The transformation of work and skill through different generations indicates that the introduction of digital technology has posed different challenges for businesses and organizations. Tommy's research aims to comprehend the understanding of how businesses and firms utilize machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence applications in recontextualizing their approaches to work, along with the roles of human workplace learning with machine learning as an extension to the human minds.

His future goals are to gain and continue pursuing research experiences throughout the Ph.D. at UCL with the Centre of Engineering Education and beyond that. Eventually, Tommy looks forward to returning home to Thailand with research abilities and experiences to pursue a career in academia and provide Thailand with assistance in the next generations of transformation.

Lan Yang

Lan Yang enrolled in the EdD Programme (part-time) in 2021. Her research interests are associated with technology-mediated learning sciences, student-centred learning design, experiential learning, knowledge management, and future-oriented curriculum development in engineering education, considering the integration of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Cloud Computing as transformative changes.

Lan currently works full-time as the Programme Officer for Curriculum Development at the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI). Lan has completed her MSc Engineering and Education studies at the Institute of Education (IOE), UCL in 2021. Before this, she worked as the Senior Researcher at Hays (Shanghai, China) in terms of recruitment consultancy and skill evaluation. With inter-disciplinary backgrounds in Mechanical Design, Human Resource Management, Engineering Education, International Higher Education Innovation, and Curriculum Design, Lan seeks to understand the implications of digital technologies on the design and delivery of engineering education programmes from the perspectives of both research and professional practices, augmented skill ecologies amid the human-machine hybrid workplace, and related knowledge/ skillsets that enable lifelong learning.

Lan intends to accumulate comprehensive professional experience in international education management and curriculum design through her current role and the EdD studies that reinforce related research activities. In the long term, Lan initiates to return and focus on the research of technology-augmented learning sciences to contribute to the engineering education cohort.

Yassin Hassan

Yassin is a PhD student at UCL; his research topic is on women in vocational education in Saudi Arabia. Yassin was attracted to VET Education in Saudi Arabia as he spent five years working in a Vocational college in the Kingdom. Yassin held BSc and MSc in Computing from the University of Leeds and the University of Bradford, respectively. Since he graduated in 2010, he has worked in the apprenticeship and IT and Business Trainer. However, Yassin worked as a part-time tutor at the University of Sussex. In Saudi Arabia, he was the coordinator of the vocational department; he turned the department into the top department in the college.
During the pandemic, Yassin moved back to the UK. Now he works on a project sponsored by the DWP to move back to work people from ethnic minorities who are new to the UK work system besides his work as a Technical Coach and IT Trainer with Windsor-forest college.

Centre Associates

Professor Abel Nyamapfene

Abel Nyamapfene is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the UCL Faculty of Engineering Science.

He is leading on the introduction of an integrated engineering mathematics curriculum across the Faculty, as well as the transformation of UCL undergraduate engineering education to research-led learning through the introduction of Minor Programmes that draw on the research expertise within the Faculty.

He also holds a Connected Curriculum Fellowship with the UCL Centre for Academic Learning and Teaching where he is serving on an institution-wide team with responsibilities for transforming the UCL undergraduate curriculum to a research-led curriculum.

His research interests encompass teaching, learning and assessment, as well as studies in higher education, notably academic leadership and institutional change.

Professor Shannon Chance

Shannon Chance serves as Visiting Professor at UCL’s Centre for Engineering Education. She worked on the UCL campus 2018-2020 as a Marie Curie Research Fellow, where she led and participated in a wide range of collaborative research projects with members of the CEE. These included an exploratory study of civil engineers’ experiences related to global responsibility, a systematic literature review of grit in engineering education, and collection of phenomenological data on architecture and civil engineering students’ understandings of design creation and knowledge generation. Today, Shannon continues to work closely with the Centre, conducting and publishing collaborative research as Visiting Professor and developing new curriculum materials as part of a project organized via UCL Consultants.

She also helps connect CEE with activities at the CREATE research group at TU Dublin -- where she serves as Lecturer and Programme Chair for the honours-level BSc in BIM (Digital Construction) -- and with the global Research in Engineering Education Network (REEN) which she recently Chaired.

Shannon is a former Professor of Architecture in the USA, where she is also licensed as an architect, and is a LEED-Accredited Professional. She holds bachelors and master’s degrees in architecture and a PhD in Higher Education.

While at UCL, Shannon was appointed a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and she guest edited two special focus issues of IEEE Transactions on Education. During her appointment here, she also served as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Education and a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE). Today, she is Deputy Editor of EJEE, and she applies the new knowledge and skills gained at UCL through various projects and activities inside UCL, TU Dublin, and, indeed, across the globe.

Stella Fowler

Stella Fowler is Policy and Research Manager at the Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC) and is an Honorary Research Fellow within the CEE. Stella has a wealth of experience in quantitative techniques, especially concerning higher education data-sets.

Dr Inês Direito

Inês Direito is an Honourary Senior Research Fellow and former Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Centre for Engineering Education. She has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Aveiro, a MSc in Cognitive Sciences and a Licenciatura in Psychology from the University of Minho (Portugal). She is now at the University of Aveiro working on a six-year funded project exploring empathy as a tool to tackle societal challenges and promote diversity and inclusion in engineering education. Before joining the Centre for Engineering Education, Inês was a postdoc researcher in a Horizon 2020 project at UCL Institute of Education, and a researcher and policy analyst at Engineering Professors’ Council. She was the lead researcher in the ‘Postgraduate Experience Project’ in Kingston University, a HEFCE funded project looking at the Postgraduate Student Experience across all transitions in the student journey, which involved 11 universities across the UK.

Her research interests include skills development and career pathways of engineering students; gender, diversity, and inclusion in engineering; emotions in engineering education.

She is the former Chair of the Special Interest Group on Gender and Diversity, European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Dr Lillian Luk

Lillian Luk is an Honorary Research Fellow at the UCL Centre for Engineering Education. Before joining the centre, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL), The University of Hong Kong (HKU). She has a multidisciplinary background, with a PhD in Education from HKU, a Masters in Japanese Linguistics from Monash University and a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Psychology from the National University of Singapore. She worked closely with academics on professional development in HKU and has more than 10 years of research experience in higher education. Her research interests lie in the area of transferable skills development and assessment, experiential learning and engineering education.

Dr Pilar Garcia-Souto

Dr Pilar Garcia-Souto graduated with a BSc in Physics, majoring in Electronics from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Spain, followed by 2-years MSc in Information Technologies. She obtained a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (Queen Mary, University of London, UK, 2012). She became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2013. Since 2007, she combined research and teaching activities. She is now a Senior Teaching Fellow in the UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Department. Her research interests, matching her multi-disciplinary profile, include infrared technology, human thermoregulation and thermal comfort, image processing, product design and mechanical characterization of materials. In addition, Pilar is highly engaged with improving teaching quality across the board, and the learning experience of students. She is doing some educational research in an improved method of peer assessment (360PA), and also leading the IPAC Consortium with staff across UCL seeking to improve the students’ satisfaction and fairness of student assessment within group work activities.

Professor Louise Archer

Professor Louise Archer, Karl Mannheim Professor of the Sociology of Education, has just joined the CEE Advisory Group. Louise has a strong interest in in/equality in STEM participation. She is the Principal Investigator for the ASPIRES/ ASPIRES2 project (a ten year ESRC-funded study of children’s science aspirations and career choices), the Director of the five year Enterprising Science project and is currently working with Professor Mark Miodownik and other colleagues on an ‘equity maker spaces’ project proposal.

Dr Jennifer Griffiths

Jenny Griffiths is a Principal Teaching Fellow in the UCL Arena Centre for Research-based Education, leading institution-wide Assessment and Feedback initiatives. She has a PhD in Medical Radiation Physics and previously worked in research and teaching posts in the UCL Department of Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering. In recent years, she has worked in the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences as Director of Postgraduate Taught Transformation, specialising in the development of Masters-level engineering education.

Her education research interests are in postgraduate student experience and education, and implementation of authentic assessment within a research-intensive academic setting.

She is a Senior Fellow of the HEA and has a passion for communication and outreach, having presented Biomedical Engineering to audiences ranging from primary school children through to the University of the Third Age.

Professor Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown is Professor of Education and Society and Pro-Director (Academic Development) of the UCL Institute of Education.

He is a sociologist interested in research capability and capacity building, doctoral education, social research methods and qualitative data analysis.

He has been Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and the Hong Kong Institute of Education, and served as a Director of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency.

He has conducted research on professional doctorates in engineering and is interested in higher professional development, knowledge production and mobilization, the relationship between academic discourse and professional practice and the career trajectories of engineers.

Dr Jay Derrick

Dr Jay Derrick worked for 30 years in Adult and Further Education as a teacher, manager and researcher before joining the Institute of Education (IOE) in 2007 as a teacher educator. He led the IOE Post-Compulsory PGCE programme for 5 years until 2017. He now teaches on the MA in Professional Education and Training, the MSc in Engineering and Education, on the ReConnect HE Preparation Programme for Refugees, and for the IOE Doctoral School. He completed his Ed D in January 2019, on Learning and Innovation through workplace practice. Follow him via his blog or on Twitter @JayDerrickIOE

Professor Alison Fuller

Alison Fuller is Pro-Director (Research and Development) at University College London Institute of Education and Professor of Vocational Education and Work.

She has been researching, and publishing in the field of, education – work transitions, apprenticeship, vocational education and training (VET), and widening participation in higher education for 25 years.

Her recent publications include Contemporary Apprenticeships: International Perspectives on an Evolving Model of Learning (edited with Lorna Unwin) – the book brings together the latest research on apprenticeship in diverse sectors in countries across Europe and internationally, and Creating and Supporting Expansive Apprenticeships: A Guide for Employers, Training Providers and Colleges of Further Educationpublished by the National Apprenticeship Service.

Alison has been appointed Independent Adviser to the Education and Training Foundation’s VET expert panel, is a member of the All Parliamentary Skills Commission and was recently consulted by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills about the selection of the new employer-led National Colleges including in advanced manufacturing, digital, and wind energy.

Professor Ann Hodgson

Ann Hodgson has worked as a teacher, lecturer, LEA adviser, editor and civil servant, joining the Institute of Education, University of London in 1993, where she is now a Professor of Education, Co-Director of the Learning for London@IOE Research Centre and Co-director of the Centre for Post-14 Research and Innovation.

She currently directs a number of international, national, local and London-related projects that focus on the relationship between young people, the post-compulsory education system and employment.

Ann has published widely in a variety of forms on topics related to post-14 policy, vocational education and training, lifelong learning and curriculum and qualifications reform.

She has just finished editing The Coming of Age for FE? Reflections on the past and future role of further education colleges in the UK, which will be published in May 2015.

Professor Ken Spours

Ken Spours is a Director of the Centre for Post-14 Research and Innovation at the Institute of Education.

He specializes in post-14 curriculum and qualifications, organization and governance and also undertakes research on education and training developments across the four countries of the UK.

Ken was a member of the Tomlinson Working Group on 14-19 Reform and a director of the Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training in England and Wales that have helped to shape the English upper secondary system.

He has a longstanding interest in vocational education and how this links to new developments in the economy.

He is also a visiting professor at Mzumbe University, Tanzania.

Dr Rachel Wilde

Rachel Wilde is an Associate Professor based at the UCL Institute of Education. She is a social anthropologist and her research focuses on transitions to work, employability and workplace learning. She is interested in the tools and relationships engineers engage in to undertake their work, and how they developed and continue to develop their expertise and knowledge.
Her most relevant publications for CEE are:

Wilde, R. J., & Guile, D. (2021). Client-facing Interprofessional Project Teams: The Role of Engineers' 'Situated Judgment'. Engineering Studies, 13 (3), 185-204. doi:10.1080/19378629.2021.2005073

Guile, D., & Wilde, R. J. (2018). ‘Articulating value’ for clients in a global engineering consulting firm: 'immaterial' activity and its implications for post-knowledge economy expertise. Journal of Education and Work. doi:10.1080/13639080.2018.1535699

Professor Debbie Chachra

The Centre is delighted to have hosted Professor Debbie Chachra from Olin College of Engineering, USA, during her sabbatical in the UK in 2017. As well as having an extensive track record of working with engineering educators globally to help them develop their ability to design and deliver student-centred learning experiences, her background aligns perfectly with a number of key areas of development within the faculty. This includes her research on the engineering student experience, specifically on self-efficacy in project-based courses, the role of gender, and why students stay in or leave engineering.

This level of experience with problem- and project-based learning rooted in rigorous pedagogical research is rare within the UK research base of engineering academics. Professor Chachra is one of the early faculty of Olin College of Engineering, which provides the ideal partner for this type of collaboration. A new engineering school, it was founded with the specific mission to both teach students differently and to foster wider change in engineering education. To this end, Olin faculty work with institutions worldwide to help them develop new, student-centred engineering courses and curricula, with the understanding that this is an organizational change process, which requires sustained energy and effort.

Dr Folashade Akinmolayan

Dr Folashade Akinmolayan graduated with a MEng and PhD in Chemical Engineering from UCL. For four years, she worked as a Teaching Fellow heavily involved in the development and implementation of the Integrated Engineering Programme at departmental level. During this time, she led innovations in online assessment, student learning and support, teaching assistant enabled team teaching, and implemented research-based pedagogies which worked towards case studies in her recognition as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2018.

She is avid about enhancing the student learning experience, spanning from pre-university to postgraduate, and this has been acknowledged through a number of nominations (four categories in the 2018 UCLU Student choice awards) and awards (Provost’s Engineering Engagement award 2015; Provost’s Excellence award 2018).

She currently a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London and a steering group member of the UK & Ireland Engineering Education Research Network. Her research interests include the Student experience of teamwork as an indicator for employability skills; Engagement and retention of students within Engineering through active learning techniques; Cultural and social impacts on the approaches to learning; Diversity and inclusion within Engineering.

Professor David Lowe

David Lowe is currently Professor of Software Engineering, and from 2012 to 2019 was the Deputy Dean (Education), in the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Sydney. David has a passion for engineering education, particularly in the areas of laboratory-based learning and student engagement with professional practice. He has authored over 200 refereed research papers and 3 textbooks.

David has been widely involved in (and chaired) accreditation and review panels across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and Mauritius. He is a Principal Fellow of the HEA and recipient of the 2019 Australian Council of Engineering Deans National Award for Engineering Education Excellence. He is also the Chair of the Board for Grok Academy, a not-for-profit company focused on supporting computing education within Australian schools, and is the independent Chair of the Academic Boards for several private education providers.

Dr Lynne Rogers

Lynne Rogers is Reader in Education at the IOE and Co-Director of the Centre for Post-14 Education and Work. She has long-stranding interests in teacher/lecturer training and learning in higher education and other professional settings. She has extensive experience of undertaking complex multi-site projects that involve mixed-method approaches, funded, for example by the Department for Education, the Institute of Physics, the Edge Foundation and the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Her research interests include vocational and technical education and training; teaching, learning and assessment particularly experiential approaches, and educational transitions.

Dr Manjula Patrick

Dr Manjula Patrick is EDI-WP Strategy Manager in the Faculty of Engineering, she has a background in biotechnology. Manjula is committed to equity and inclusion, particularly in relation to access, outcomes, and representation across all higher education activities. She won a Provost's award for ‘Excellence in Fairness, Equality and Diversity’ in 2018, and a Public Engagement Award (2012) for an exhibition showcasing the history, culture, and language of an under-served community, the British Deaf community.

Manjula conducts research with minoritised groups, including impact of intersectional identities. Her pilot project in the Faculty identified and evidenced awarding gaps related to disabled and neurodivergent students for the first time at UCL, establishing a framework which can be used for similar investigations. Read the full project report here.

Co-designing blended learning training related to equity for internal and external audiences, is another of Manjula’s interests. She won an Innovation and Enterprise Award (2019) for developing a suite of deaf awareness courses for health professionals. In May 2021, she launched a deaf awareness course teachers, which has attracted an international audience. Manjula is currently developing self-directed training for FES to improve inclusion of disabled and neurodivergent staff and students.

Manjula co-Chair of the Widening Participation Community of Practice, she developed and leads an annual UCL widening participation residential summer school, 'Discover UCL or Deaf and Hard of hearing (year 12) students', an event unique to UCL, celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022.

As the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences’ Disability Equity Lead, Manjula has initiated cross-faculty EDI projects. A current pilot project is setting up a new network for neurodivergent students in partnership with Dr Sarah-Louise Quinnell.

Manjula is a member of UCL Disability Equity groups; the Disability Equality Steering Group (DESG) and the Disability Equality Implementation Group (DEIG). She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Governor of a deaf school, and fluent in British Sign Language (BSL).

Dr Irina Lazar

Dr Irina Lazar is an Associate Professor (Teaching) in Engineering and Public Policy in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) and the Programme Director for the BSc Science and Engineering for Social Change.

She holds degrees in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest, Romania, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bristol. She then studied Public Policy with the London School of Economics and Political Science and is now leading an interdisciplinary programme that blends the practical, applicable knowledge from engineering and the physical sciences with a comprehensive understanding of how policy is made and implemented.

Irina is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has led large scale curriculum and assessment reviews in engineering. She also contributed as an adviser for engineering programmes across the country.

Her education research interests are:
•   Curriculum co-creation in partnership with students and the industry
•   Programme-level authentic assessment
•   Blended teaching and learning
•   Sustainable education and sustainability teaching
•   Inclusive engineering education.
To achieve her research goals, Irina collaborates with academics and students at various universities in the UK and abroad.

Dr Sudeshna Basugupta

Dr Sudeshna Basu is a Lecturer (Teaching) in the department of Chemical Engineering (CE) UCL. Since 2016, her teaching to students from diverse academic background focuses on developing their understanding of geological concepts for an efficient management of natural resources, with an emphasis on sustainability and energy transition. She is also an established researcher in geoscience currently contributing as a guest lecturer to different modules in Earth Sciences UCL, on Earth resources’ sustainability and policies.

Sudeshna is interested in educational research focusing on interdisciplinary teaching. She is a fellow of HEA since 2017, and particularly attentive towards ensuring an inclusive learning environment. In her role as the coordinator of a dissertation module, she worked on ensuring consistency in marking across two universities (UCL and UNISA) for fair assessment. Further, based on a successful UCL Changemakers’ project, she is interested to see how we can improve the learning experiences of students from minority ethnicities.
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To summarise, Sudeshna’s educational research interests and publications are on:
1.   Embedding geology in Engineering education
2.   Improving the learning experiences of students from minority ethnicities through networking opportunities
3.   Implementing diverse teaching and assessment methods towards an inclusive learning environment
4.   Implementing best practices to moderate marking for consistency

Dr Rehan Shah

Dr. Shah is a Lecturer in Mathematics and Engineering Education at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) with research interests in applied mathematics (nonlinear dynamics, analytical mechanics and mathematical modelling) as well as mathematics and engineering education pedagogy. He is also the School Lead for Inclusive Scholarship for the Centre for Academic Inclusion in Science and Engineering (CAISE) at QMUL, the Research Seminars Coordinator, Centre for Research in Engineering and Materials Education (CREME)and a Research Integrity Champion for the Queen Mary Research Integrity Committee (RIC).

He completed his PhD in Applied Mathematics (Nonlinear Dynamics) at University College London (UCL), where he also taught on a wide range of courses in mathematics, physics and engineering for which he received several teaching excellence awards. In addition to this, he is an accredited Fellow (FHEA) of the UK Higher Education Academy and has also been a Guest Mathematics Teacher at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Prior to this, he taught GCSE and A-Level Mathematics as a full-time secondary school teacher at several independent schools across London. He also has an MSc in Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing from the University of Oxford (St. Anne's College) and a BEng in Mechanical Engineering with Business Finance from UCL.

Dr Liu Xu

LIU Xu, Assistant Professor of Southern University of Science and Technology, established in 2010 for experimenting with Chinese higher education reform and one of the youngest but rapidly been recognized research universities in the world. Xu received her Ph.D. from UCL Institute of Education. Her research interests focus on higher education policy especially private higher education, innovative and interdisciplinary education, and undergraduate education. She is also a member of the Academic Board of QS University Rankings. Dr. Liu Xu welcomes doctoral students and scholars to conduct cooperative study including short-term visits and post-doctoral research (liux9@sustech.edu.cn).

More about her research can be found in the following links.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=v5c_xhwAAAAJ&hl=en
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1567-7925