IRDR excellence recognised in UCL awards

Nominations and awards were made in the UCL Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences Education Awards and the UCL BEAMS Professional Services Awards.

The UCL Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences Education Awards recognise excellence in teaching. This year, PhD student Mhari Gordon and Dr Mohammad Shamsudduha both received Individual Excellence awards, and Dr Lisa Danquah and Dr Yulia Ioffe were both Highly Commended.

The judges highlighted Mhari's innovative use of interactive, hands-on activities in seminars to support students, and how Dr Shamsudduha's collaboration with students had improved both the programme and their exerience. Dr Danquah received praise for her dedicated approach to supporting students with ethics and risk assessment. Dr Ioffe was commended for her contribution to the development of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Humanitarianism Society, a departmental student society aimed at improving the student experience, collaborative environment, and sense of belonging.

In the Team Excellence category, the Assessment UCL team, consisting of both IRDR academic and professional services staff members – Jose Delgado, Dr Saman Ghaffarian, Dr Yasmine Sabri; Professor Joanna Faure Walker, Dr Mohammad Shamsudduha, Dr Bayes Ahmed, Dr Gianluca Pescaroli, Dr Rozana Himaz, and Dr Punam Yadav, John Spittles and Marieke Guy – won their award for excellent feedback and creative use of the AssessmentUCL platform.

The judges commented: "Creativity within Conformity: UCL-IRDR embraces Department-wide shift to AssessmentUCL platform with marking rubrics that find alignment between different disciplines and within interdisciplinary, while celebrating nuanced and subtle differences between subject needs."

In addition, Dr Shamsudduha was also recognised with a nomination for Outstanding Research Supervision in the UCL Student Choice Awards, which are run by the UCL Students’ Union, and voted for by students. 

In the UCL BEAMS Professional Services Awards, GRRIPP Finance and Due Diligence Manager Nadia Jackson won in the 'Communicating and engaging effectively with the world' category and Work Placement Manager Nicola Jordan received a special mention in the 'Giving our students the best support, facilities, and opportunities' category. Communications and Events Manager Sarah Jeal was also nominated in the Communications category for the second year.

Head of Department Professor Joanna Faure Walker said: “These awards are a fantastic achievement and we congratulate everyone who was recognised. We are proud of the breadth of education excellence demonstrated not only in these awards but across the whole department, and thank all our staff for their contributions."