I am an Associate Professor for Physiology and Pharmacology. I research in two different disciplines. The first is in bioscience and relates largely to studying calcium handling in isolated cardiac myocytes. The second relates to my interrogation of the nature of learning itself at university via my educational research.
I ran my own BHF-funded laboratory at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge in Professor Sir Michael Berridge's Laboratory of Molecular Signalling. Here I pharmacologically characterised a novel cardiac beta-adrenoceptor. As a pedagogical researcher I have run national workshops on teaching and learning for colleagues for the AdvanceHE and the Heads of University Biosciences (HUBS)/Royal Society of Biology (RSB).
I am a Senior Fellow of the HEA, a Fellow of the RSB and was, for a number of years, Education Lead for the Physiological Society. I was UK HEA Bioscience Teacher of the Year in 2014/15 and am now Chair of the judging panel for this award. I set up a national "Bridging the Awarding Gaps" Network for the RSB in 2020 and now co-Chair this network. Undergraduate courses I led were shortlisted by the Guardian University Awards in the "Course Design, Student Outcomes and Retention" category.
As the Physiological Society's Education Lead I ran a series of worldwide webinars on topics as diverse as "Teaching in the Time of Covid", "Delivering Final Year or Capstone projects" and "Diversity in Teaching". As Expert Panel Member for the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) I helped draw up a new national BSc Pharmacology curriculum. I am now part of the BPS's Inclusive Pharmacology Group.
I am an acknowledged expert in UK Biosciences teaching having national roles which shape policy and strategy in those disciplines.
As a culmination of these efforts in 2021 I was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by AdvanceHE.
Associate Professor