Sophia MacBlain

Sophia MacBlain is the Faculty Student Experience Officer for the Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Sophia recently joined UCL from her previous role at Queen Mary Students’ Union as their Representation and Democracy Manager, working with the 4 sabbatical officers, and over 500 elected student representatives. She was responsible for all Student Voice activity including elections, training and support for all of the officers, and supporting the four sabbatical officers to enact their manifestos alongside collaborating with the university to improve the student experience. Joining the faculty office has been a big change for her, as she previously worked alongside elected representatives day to day to lobby the university for change. The officers would lead all of the direction of her work, which would change from year to year. She's looking forward to using her knowledge and experience to work with departments and student representatives to improve the student experience in MAPS together.

Sophia is from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and after a brief interlude to Chester for university, moved to East London 4 years ago. When asked how different her new role felt, she replied that "UCL is completely different pace from Queen Mary. The sheer size alone! I am excited to get to know MAPS departments, and our students and get started! ". She loves East London, thinking of it as her second home, and loves cycling through Victoria Park, or wandering through Columbia Road Flower Market on a Sunday.

Her career has been built around student experience, either with International students, or with elected representatives, and she is excited to use the focus on elected representatives that she has coming from a Students’ Union background to be able to empower all the elected representatives within the faculty to make change. The main challenge that she is looking forward to is engaging students in why they should care about feedback. It can be difficult to engage students democratic structures, but she is confident that she can bring a culture change amongst the student cohorts and get them passionate about working in partnership with their department. Firstly, through her Student Voice project, which is increasing the number of course reps within departments, and providing them with more training and ongoing support. Secondly, looking at how she can support departments with their induction activities.

She is a keen reader, and loves using her commute to read, listen to podcasts or write short stories. She is a big comic book fan, Marvel over DC and a Crossfit enthusiast.