Summary
Mark is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Educational Development, situated in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship (CHERS). He is Director of the Imperial STAR Framework, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. As an anthropologist Mark's interests include the sociocultural dynamics of education and learning, and ethnographic approaches to medicine, public health, sustainable development, law enforcement, social justice and exploring the lived experiences of oppressed and marginalised communities.
Current role
As Director of the Imperial Star Framework, Mark coordinates the support and evaluation of HEA Fellowship applications for academic and teaching staff and is Chair of the STAR Review Panel. Previously co-leader of Imperial's PG Cert in University Learning and Teaching, he now teaches on all levels of the MEd programme and supervises postgraduate research at Masters and PhD levels. He also serves on the Education Committee of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, and provides consultation on curriculum design, evaluation methods and active learning to colleagues, groups and departments across the College.
Mark is currently engaged in ethnographic research for the DDaRe Project – Damage, Danger and Redemption: Exploring vulnerability and resilience at the intersection of culture, stigma and mental health among urban gay and bisexual men.
Background
Mark's academic background is rooted in the social sciences, with professional expertise in archaeology, applied anthropology and educational development.
After studying Archaeology at Reading and Oxford universities, Mark worked as a field archaeologist at the Museum of London before moving overseas to conduct eight years of archaeological and ethnological research on pre-colonial Tswana-speaking communities in southern Africa.
During his African work, which included directing an international archaeological field school, Mark nurtured a deep appreciation for the power of community-centred education and its potential for international development and transformative learning. The experience culminated in the completion of a PhD at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2009.
Mark holds an MSc in Education (Learning and Technology) from the University of Oxford, and he has held posts as a Learning Technologist and a Senior Lecturer in Teaching and Learning at the University of Greenwich.
He is a member of Imperial 600, the Imperial College LGBT staff network.
External Activities
Mark is the founder of Akkadium, an organisation with a mission to advance the exploration and application of human sciences for education, development and social justice.
He teaches Archaeology and Anthropology at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.
Professional affiliations and fellowships
Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists
Member of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
Member of the National Union of Journalists
Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Fellow of the Linnean Society
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Selected Output
Bale, R. & Anderson, M. (2022) Teacher identities of graduate teaching assistants: how we (De)legitimise GTAs’ role identities, Teaching in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2022.2109015
Skopec, M., Fyfe, M., Hamdi, I., Ippolito, K., Anderson, M. and Harris, M. (2021) Decolonization in a higher education STEMM institution – is ‘epistemic fragility’ a barrier?. London Review of Education. Vol. 19(1). DOI: 10.14324/LRE.19.1.18
Bacon, L., McKinnon, L., Anderson, M., Hansson, B., Fox, A., Cecowski, M., Hjeltnes, T. A. and Static, D. (2015) Addressing retention and completion in MOOCs - a student-centric design approach. Paper delivered at E-Learn - World Conference on E-Learning, 19th to 22nd October 2015, Kona, Hawaii. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Anderson, M. S. (2013) Digital Learning: Exploring Evolving Ecosystems of Technology-Enhanced Education. Milton Keynes: Atikkam Publishing.
Anderson, M. S. (2013) Marothodi: The Historical Archaeology of an African Capital. Woodford: Atikkam Publishing. Available here.
Hall, S., Anderson, M., Boeyens, J. and Coetzee, F. (2008) Towards an outline of the oral geography, historical identity and political economy of the late precolonial Tswana in the Rustenburg region. In Swanepoel et al. (eds), Five Hundred Years Rediscovered. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Hall, S., Miller, D., Anderson, M. and Boeyens, J. (2006) An exploratory study of copper and iron production at Marothodi, an early 19th century Tswana town, Rustenburg District, South Africa. Journal of African Archaeology 4(1): 3-35.