I am an Associate Professor for Physiology and Pharmacology and Course Director for undergraduate Pharmaceutical Science degree courses at Kingston. 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 pedagogic research.
As a bioscientist 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 b-adrenoceptor. As a pedagogical researcher I run national workshops on teaching and learning for academic colleagues under the auspices of 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 UK Education Theme Lead for the Physiological Society. I am the holder of the UK HEA Bioscience Teacher of the Year Award 2014/15. I am currently setting up a national "Bridging the Awarding Gaps" Network for the RSB. This role arose from the fact that undergraduate courses I lead have been shortlisted by both the Guardian University Awards in the category of "Course Design, Student Outcomes and Retention".
For the Physiological Society as Education Theme Lead I have run 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 an Expert Panel Member for the British Pharmacological Society I helped draw up a new national BSc Pharmacology curriculum.
I am an acknowledged expert in teaching in Bioscience in the UK and have national roles which shape policy and strategy in those disciplines.
In 2021 I was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by AdvanceHE.
Associate Professor