Summary
I am interested in developing active learning and building more active learning into the teaching of physics at Imperial to enhance student learning; the focus of my role is transforming pedagogy as part of Imperial's Learning and Teaching Strategy, via supporting academic staff to make use of innovations in teaching practice, and by directly developing new teaching activities and resources. I have been involved in developing blended-learning course elements and one major activity I have worked on is developing new interactive activities for the new interactive lecture theatre in the physics department which was constructed over summer 2019, which we adapted to run online in the 2020-21 academic year. In the current academic year, I am leading seminars in both year 1 (in Mechanics & Relativity) and year 2 (in Thermal Physics & Structure of Matter).
I am the Physics Department's Digital Learning Champion. In this role I liaise with the Edtech team, ICT and other departments within the FONS faculty to try to ensure that digital learning developments can best support teaching and learning within Physics.
I am also interested in physics education research and have carried out evaluation work on several of our courses using both quantitative (concept inventories) and qualitative (focus group) methods. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and in Autumn 2022 completed an MEd in University Learning and Teaching which I studied for part-time at Imperial from 2019-22, receiving a distinction and being awarded a prize for my dissertation which was an investigation of factors influencing on problem-solving in first-year physics students
My research background is in solid-state physics, specifically in carrying out experiments to investigate quantum effects in superconductors at the nanoscale. Before coming to Imperial in October 2018, I was a Senior Research Fellow, principal investigator and EPSRC Early Career Fellow at UCL, where I also taught students in the Centre for Doctoral Training in Delivering Quantum Technologies, and on the MSc in Nanotechnology.
I am currently module leader for the first-year Mechanics & Relativity module and also lecture electromagnetism to second-year chemistry students taking the M&P2 physics option. Since joining Imperial my teaching commitments have also included teaching in the teaching labs, computing and academic tutorials. I am personal tutor to a group of eight first-year students.