Staff achievements in teaching and learning recognised at UCL Education Awards 2021

10 June 2021

Congratulations to MAPS Faculty staff who featured as both winners and runners up for the UCL Education Awards 2021.

The Education Awards brings together the following awards:

Academic Rep of the Year
UCL Provost Education Awards
Student Choice Awards

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UCL President & Provost Dr Michael Spence AC, Vice-Provost (Education & Student Experience) Professor Deborah Gill, Ayman Benmati (SU Education Officer) and Jim Onyemenam (SU Postgraduate Students' Officer) introduce The Education Awards 2021.

Faculty Academic Rep of the Year (Mathematical and Physical Sciences)

Winner: Myra Farooqi
Lead Department Rep, UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction

“Myra is at the frontline to fight for representation and changes that impact the cohort and has made a real impact on students’ education.” As a Lead Rep, Myra has been nominated for her tireless and continuous work for improving the student experience. She has gone “above and beyond in her methods of collecting the students’ opinions” and used the results from a survey to create a 12 page report for the SSCC meetings. She has also hosted regular office hours and organised meetings for all Reps. Myra has also made sure that student wellbeing was not neglected, and hence created a Zoom link that is open 24/7 for students to use whenever they need to socialise, or work together.

Student Choice Awards

Award for Diverse and Inclusive Education

Winner: Luciano Rila
Lecturer (Teaching), Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences

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Luciano Rila joined UCL Maths in 2008 running support for A Level Further Maths in a Widening Participation role. He built up outreach as core part of the department’s activities, working with a team of PhD students. He started teaching in 2015, receiving a Faculty Teaching award in 2016. He co-chairs the departmental Athena SWAN committee and is one of the founders of the LGBTQ+ STEM at UCL network (@LGBTQ_STEMatUCL).

Award for Outstanding Research Supervision

Runner-up: Caroline Knapp
Lecturer, Faculty of Mathematics & Physical Sciences

Caroline Knapp was appointed Lecturer in 2017, in the Inorganic section at UCL Chemistry. She gained her MSci (2006) and PhD (2010) from UCL in the field of precursor design for aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition. Following this she worked on low valent group 14 chemistry at UC Davis, with Professor Phil P. Power FRS. She returned to the UK, firstly with a post doc. at Imperial College before being awarded a Ramsay Memorial Fellowship in 2015. Aside from teaching her research group now carries out investigations isolating highly air and moisture sensitive precursors for the printing of electronic devices.

Provost Education Awards

Winner (Assessment and Feedback): Victoria Hilborne
Lecturer (Teaching), UCL Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

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This award highlights the contributions Vicky has made to enhance the student experience, specifically in assessment and feedback, but more broadly as well. Vicky’s contribution to transforming the Level 7 taught material, and additionally shifting the 2nd year Phys Chem laboratories to a remote course, has been remarkable and goes far beyond what would be expected. By shifting a whole year’s assessment to coursework and integrating formative and summative feedback within the Topics in Modern Chemistry courses, Vicky has taken a leading role which has impacted on the whole department and will continue to do so in years to come. As chair of the Departmental Staff Student Consultative Committee (DSSCC) Vicky has also played a significant role in maintaining two-way feedback in this year of remote learning, which has been crucial to the success of all our programmes this year. Feedback from staff and students has been extremely positive about her contributions. To lead all these changes, alongside carrying out all her other teaching and administrative duties to an excellent standard, is really remarkable.

Winner (Education success for all): Andrea Jiménez Dalmaroni
Honorary Associate Professor, London Centre for Nanotechnology, Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Andrea is passionately committed to transforming university education in STEM through modern evidence-based methods and active learning, and she has been highly effective; she is among the international leaders in this area, making her own original contributions and working with leading groups worldwide. She has promoted wide-ranging and successful innovations and helped to promote a culture change at UCL. In addition, she has shown exceptional national leadership (unique, in someone at her career stage) with the organization of a series of UK-wide workshops having international input and reach. She feels a sense of personal mission to bring practice in the UK to level of the best elsewhere, and she is achieving this at UCL and nationally.

Congratulations to all UCL staff and students who have been recognised in these awards.