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Faculty of Life Sciences

Meet the current Faculty lead for Life Sciences, view current and past projects and interventions.

Afia Ali

Professor Afia Ali is a Senior Fellow of HEA, and has led several innovations to pedagogy, opened collaborative educational projects and led various modules of Body Systems and Therapeutics courses in the Master of Pharmacy degree (MPharm). As chair of the “Patient Public and Carer Engagement in MPharm” group at the School, Prof Ali has led in developing collaborative educational projects by empowering public, patients, and carers (experts-by-experience) and mentored undergraduate students in actively engaging in core MPharm. curriculum design (funded by UCL Changemaker projects).


This continual implementation of innovative curriculum redesigns and leadership in embedding a culture of sharing experiences and best practice, by building collaboration between faculties has impacted on enhanced student engagement and learning experiences focused on primary healthcare. Driven by self-reflection on the impact of being a female from the minority cluster of academics and as a “values-based” leader, Prof Ali is passionate about her leadership in implementing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in education. She led various projects in motivating staff to work with the UCL Widening Participation office, that has led to her role as the Black, Asian, Minoritized Ethnic (BAME) Awarding Gap lead for the Faculty of Life Sciences.

She has been a Student Success Faculty Lead since September 2024.

 

Current work

Intervention

Theme and Objectives

Outputs, Outcomes and Impact

Status

Raise awareness of departmental awarding gaps with Faculty tutors and Education Leads. Discuss how to narrow the gaps.

Staff initiatives - Staff Culture Change

  • Raise awareness and think about the interventions.
  • Raise awareness through discussion with staff at faculty and department levelt, include the, in the interventions.
  • Narrow the awarding gaos for the departments.
Ongoing - 2025-26

Improve how students receive their feedback for research projects. The level of feedback needs to be improved, creating a standard feedback form, so students get a fair level of feedback, equity for all.

Curriculum changes - Assessment Feedback initiatives

  • Once implemented in teh School of Pharnacy, it could be rolled out to other departments. Students should be able to improve their work due to further understanding.

Ongoing - 2025-26

Listen to the student voice - host a brunch/catch-up. Collaboration with the Student Success Office.

Student belonging - Student engagement, voice, and co-creation

  • Presentation about student success and awarding gaps etc.
  • Use student feedback to improve teaching / feedback. Find out what the students want and need.
  • This could be a yearly event, if it works well.

Postponed until October 2025

 

Previous work

  • Meeting with FLS student Reps to highlight the BAME awarding gap project.
  • Conducted focus group meetings across FLS to identify key concerns in the inclusive curriculum
  • Conducted online-focus group meetings with students to gather opinions and identify themes that are priority for students in tackling the BAME awarding gap.