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Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences

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

Tamara Alhilfi

Tamara is an Associate Professor based in the Department of Chemistry, working closely with Katherine Holt (Vice Dean of Education), Francesca Scott (Director of Education and Student Experience) and Nicholas Achilleos (Vice Dean of EDI). Tamara leads a cross-departmental working group, and sits on a number of UCL committees to ensure that awarding gaps are considered in education strategies and the student experience throughout all departments in MAPS. 

Tamara teaches primarily on postgraduate taught Masters level courses in both the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Chemistry. My topics include microplastics and the environment, polymers and their uses in pharmaceutics, research and professional development skills and synthetic organic chemistry skills.

She has been a Student Success Lead since September 2024.

Current work

Intervention

Theme

Outputs, Outcomes and Impact

Status

'Student Success Champions' Faculty team. Build a working group of student Success Champions in each department.Staff initiatives - Staff working group
  • Action plans for each department will be created. Data will be analysed and presented at faculty level by the Student Success Faculty Lead and then presented departmentally by the champions.
  • Better dissemination of key information and signposting within departments.
  • More collaboration of departmental efforts and their benefit to the faculty. Greater autonomy in departments to design interventions specific to their issues.
All departmental champions to be in position by February 2025.
Expand mentoring / coaching scheme for students.Careers / student belonging
  • Feedback from coaches on themes that occur in sessions so we can identify areas where students need additional support
  • Provide students with a safe space to explore themes related to the barriers they may face in academics due to their ethnicity and race.
  • Impact studies from previous cohorts of students have demonstrated increased confidence and increased participation in their academic studies.
To be completed 2024-25
Paid focus groupsStudent belonging
  • Qualitative data from students and collaboration with students to understand issues specific to STEM subjects.
  • Allows student voice to be at the centre of designed initiatives.
  • Knowledge about the student experience for minoritised groups.
Ongoing
Evaluation of core module dataCurriculum changes
  • Presentation of results and analysis of key data
  • Can identify areas in the curriculum and assessment that Access UCL and / or drop one or drop two students need additional support and teaching.
  • Redesign of some core modules to reduce any potential gaps.
To be completed 2024-25

 

Previous work

  • Created a faculty specific toolkit, utilising academic research and the UCL Toolkit to make the inclusive curriculum health check more applicable to STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths).
  • Created departmental guides for closing the BAME awarding gap, based on interviews and meetings with departmental groups and module data from departments.
  • Secured faculty funding to run an external mentoring scheme partnered with Umo for BAME students. Umo provided us with feedback on the key belonging issues affecting students in the faculty.
  • Awarded external funding (Royal Society of Chemistry, £60,000) to address the leaky pipeline of BAME students into academia, with specific focus on closing the BAME awarding gap. This funding has also allowed the mentoring scheme to be extended for three years.
  • Faculty specific teaching workshops for embedding initiatives proven to help close awarding gaps into modules. Eg. Incorporating groupwork (belonging), inclusive assessment etc.