Current projects

Summary

The Imperial Experience project is the university's central student experience project offering a holistic and supportive student experience. Data analysis work undertaken as part of the project has highlighted a gap in engagement in sport and wider student activities among postgraduate taught students.

We are looking for engaged and analytical students to explore the gap in engagement in sport and wider student activities among postgraduate taught students.

You will investigate the barriers affecting participation, students’ awareness and perceptions of available opportunities, and the kinds of activities, formats, or approaches that postgraduate taught students would find more accessible, relevant, and engaging.

You will work closely with Imperial College Union and Move Imperial, contributing to ongoing work to strengthen postgraduate representation and to influence the provision of sport and activities for postgraduate taught students.

Project Lead

Muna Ali (muna.ali@imperial.ac.uk), Education Projects Coordinator (Non-Academic Experience), Education Office

Further Details/Experience Required

8 weeks part-time starting in November (inclusive of Christmas break), in to January.  

Six positions available.  Postgraduate students are eligible.  

Improving PGT Engagement ad.pdf

Summary

Generative AI tools can now plausibly complete much unsupervised coursework to a high standard – but how much, how easily, and does it matter who is at the keyboard? Over the past year, staff-led 'AI solvability audits' of real coursework in Medicine, Aeronautics, Mechanical Engineering and Earth Science & Engineering have shown that many course teams are unaware of how capable these tools are on their own assessments. This project puts students at the centre of the next step, testing two hypotheses with Imperial-wide significance: (1) that state-of-the-art AI tools can complete almost any unsupervised coursework to a high standard; and (2) that a student with no background in a subject can use AI tools to do the same. 

Hypothesis 2 can only be tested by students – a member of staff cannot pretend to be a novice equipped with AI. Student partners will therefore use frontier AI tools to attempt unsupervised assessments from disciplines outside their own (selected with consenting course teams), documenting the approach they take, how independently they can work, where the tools shine and where they fall down, and how much of the assessment they can complete. Alongside the relevant teaching staff, partners will then co-evaluate the AI-generated work, co-analyse the findings across assessments, and co-author the outputs: per-assessment audits for course teams, an internal cross-College report, and a reusable audit toolkit with practical guidance so that staff can test their own assessments in future. 

This is a genuine partnership throughout. Partners refine the audit methodology and solvability rubric with staff at the outset, hold equal voice in fortnightly steering meetings, help decide which assessments are audited and what evidence matters, and play a central role in shaping the recommendations – particularly on how assessments can remain engaging and open-ended while becoming more resistant to completion by AI alone. Because your own documented approaches and reflections form part of the evidence, the project's educational ethics application will make this dual role explicit, with informed consent, confidentiality and anonymisation addressed from the start.

Project Lead

Rhodri Nelson (rhodri.nelson@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow in Computational Data Science • Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

22 weeks part-time from November, with two weeks full-time during an appropriate vacation break for an 'audit sprint'.  

A maximum of 6 positions available.  

Students from any department are applicable.  

SS advert AI CW 26-27.pdf

Summary

Have you ever wondered why students from different backgrounds can experience assessment and feedback differently? Would you like to help shape a more inclusive learning experience at Imperial?
This StudentShapers project brings together students and staff from across Imperial to better understand East Asian students' experiences of assessment, feedback and engagement. National Student Survey (NSS) and other institutional data show consistent differences in how Asian students experience feedback across several departments. We want to understand why these differences exist and work in partnership with students to develop practical solutions.
As a StudentShaper, you will play a central role in the project. You will receive training in qualitative research and work alongside staff to design and facilitate focus groups, analyse findings, and co-create resources that support more inclusive assessment and feedback practices across the university.

Your contribution may include:

• Working with staff to design focus groups and interview questions.
• Facilitating discussions with fellow students about their experiences of assessment and feedback.
• Helping to analyse the themes emerging from qualitative data.
• Co-designing resources and recommendations to improve feedback practices.
• Supporting dissemination activities, such as presenting at workshops or contributing to short blog posts or case studies.

Exact activities will be agreed collaboratively by the project team.
No previous research or teaching experience is required. Full training and support will be provided.

Project Lead

Maria Parkes (maria.parkes04@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow, Department of Bioengineering

Ioanna Papatsouma (i.papatsouma@imperial.ac.uk), Principle Teaching Fellow, Department of Mathematics

Further Details/Experience Required

1 week full-time (21st-25th September) before ten weeks of part-time across Autumn term.  

6 positions available.  

Undergraduate students in Year 2 and above from participating departments* and Postgraduate Medicine students. We particularly welcome applications from students who identify as East Asian, as their lived experiences will be central to this project.
Participating departments include Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics.

Improving Assessment and Feedback for East Asian Students recruitment ad

Summary

Driven by Imperial's strategic commitment to advancing feedback practice and student learning in an AI-enabled educational landscape, and informed by insights from the FLAIR (Feedback and Learning: AI-Assisted &
Reimagined) research project, we aim to take a proactive approach by creating opportunities for Imperial
undergraduate students to engage critically with GenAI-assisted feedback and reflect on their experiences.

Essentially, we seek to co-develop a suite of flexible, evidence-based resources (e.g., infographics, videos,
animations, posters, podcasts, flashcards, or postcards) that support students in understanding what constitutes
effective feedback and how Generative AI can be used responsibly, ethically and efficiently within feedback
practices. The work will build on the rich empirical data collected during the FLAIR research phase,
including student perspectives on feedback experiences and GenAI-assisted feedback. Your involvement as
student partners is essential, and your insights and experiences will play a key role in co-creating resources that
are engaging, inclusive and meaningful for the wider Imperial community.

Project Lead

Tiffany Chiu (t.chiu@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow in Educational Development, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

Further Details/Experience Required

Four positions available - undergraduate students from FoE, Natural Sciences and FoM.  

9 weeks full-time during Summer break, followed by the opportunity for part-time term-time work between September and December.  

FLAIR recruitment ad

Summary

Engineering undergraduate students on accredited programmes in the UK are expected to ‘Adopt an inclusive approach to engineering practice and recognise the responsibilities, benefits and importance of supporting equality, diversity and inclusion’. However, for many students our current teaching on EDI does not seem to resonate and can seem superficial; something that can be written about but then forgotten, or a tick box exercise. The project aims to develop a EDI workshop for undergraduate students that draws on their values and lived experiences of bias, discrimination and good inclusive practice. By developing an experiential learning experience that does not rely on slides or notes and isn’t about coming to the right answer but making meaning of these complex and emotive issues for oneself, we hope to transform student (and staff) understanding of these issues.

To do this we are looking to bring together a diverse team, so students can inform and shape the content of their teaching, with the intention of producing a workshop where examples feel relevant to engineering students. The project aims to adopt an authentic staff-student partnership by taking all key decisions as a team, through a series of regular team meetings. It will also draw on staff understanding of the educational theory

Project Lead

Maria Parkes (maria.parkes04@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow, Department of Bioengineering

Further Details/Experience Required

Ten weeks of part-time across Autumn term.  

8 positions available.  

We are looking to recruit 8 students from across the Faculty of Engineering. For UG students we are looking for a range across years 2, 3 &4. Out of the 8 students, we would also like to recruit up to 2 PhD students, ideally with GTA experience of managing small group teaching

Bringing EDI to Life recruitment ad

Summary

Design Engineering or engineering students can pursue roles across product innovation, engineering, software, data and AI, consulting, finance, start-ups, sustainability and social innovation. This breadth can make it difficult to identify suitable sectors, interpret unfamiliar role titles and explain degree skills to employers.

Student partners will jointly select four or five priority pathway areas and co-create a pilot Industry Pathways Hub. Participation may include mapping sectors, companies, roles and skills; reviewing current resources; consulting peers; testing draft content; creating role and company cards and a skills-to-pathways matrix; and presenting the Hub to students. Decisions on priorities, structure and presentation will be shared across the student-staff team.

Project Lead

Wei Hutchinson (w.hutchinson@imperial.ac.uk), Teaching Fellow, Dyson School of Design Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

10 weeks part-time across Autumn term.  

3 positions available.  

Undergraduate Dyson School of Design Engineering students are particularly encouraged to apply.  Students from other Faculty of Engineering departments are welcome where they have relevant experience or interest in placements, internships, start-ups, volunteering or industry projects. No prior educational research experience is required. We hope to appoint students at different stages of placement preparation.

Industry Pathways Hub for DE students recruitment ad

Summary

The principal challenge facing the world’s growing population is how to maintain sustainable access to the natural resources – water, energy and food – that are necessary for us to enjoy a good quality of life, while also protecting the environment. The science and engineering behind understanding and solving this challenge lie at the heart of the Geology, Geophysics, and Earth and Planetary Science degrees taught in ESE.  

StudentShapers will investigate how sustainability is integrated across the undergraduate curricula of Geology, Geophysics, and Earth and Planetary Science, focusing on where and to what extent key competencies are developed throughout the student journey. By accessing a wide range of teaching materials and curriculum documents they will map sustainability competencies aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and UNESCO frameworks, examining how these are introduced, developed, and assessed. A key contribution of this project is the development of an interactive mapping tool to help current and prospective students visualise the sustainability skills they develop through their module choices.

Project Lead

Christina Woltz (c.woltz@imperial.ac.uk), Research Fellow, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Emma Passmore (e.passmore@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Anna Korre (a.korre@imperial.ac.uk), Associate Provost (Sustainability), Prof Environmental Eng,  Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

Nine weeks of part-time across Autumn term from 28th September.    

2 positions available.  

Undergraduate students in Year 2 and above from any Earth Science and Engineering programme are eligible.  

Sustainability Themes in Earth Sciences Programmes recruitment ad

Summary

Are you a Mathematics student interested in how data can be used to inform understanding, support decision-making and enhance learning? Would you like to work in partnership with teaching staff to help shape innovative teaching materials for future Mathematics students?

This StudentShapers project started in June 2026 with an initial group of student partners. So far, we have developed interactive resources that allow students to explore probability distributions by changing their parameters and observing how their properties and visualisations change. We have also created visualisations to help students explore and understand statistical concepts, such as sample variance and the law of large numbers, and started developing case
studies that place different probability distributions in real-world contexts and help students understand when and why particular distributions are useful.

In this second round, you will build on this work by helping us expand, test and refine these resources, explore interesting datasets and applications, and contribute new ideas for teaching materials. Student partners will also be expected to support dissemination activities, such as presenting at workshops or contributing to short blog posts or case studies and may have opportunities to help plan and support Visualisationathons later in the academic year. Exact activities will be agreed collaboratively by the project team.

Project Lead

Ioanna Papatsouma (i.papatsouma@imperial.ac.uk), Principle Teaching Fellow, Department of Mathematics

Chris Hallsworth (c.hallsworth@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Lecturer, Department of Mathematics

Further Details/Experience Required

10 week part-time during Autumn term.  

3 positions available.  

Undergraduate students in Year 2 and above from Mathematics.

Co-creating Teaching Materials for Communicating with Data – Round 2 recruitment

Summary

You will work with your staff partners to co-design a short, self-paced introduction to programming via Python for Imperial offer-holders. The resource will take a multimodal form, viz., written explanations, annotated examples, brief video or audio demonstrations, and interactive exercises, including the use of GenAI-assisted coding.
Your input will be instrumental in the design and calibration of the resources, with the aim to demystify programming, establish foundational concepts, and give incoming students an optional, low-stakes, early programming practice. You will work towards delivering a student-centred pre-arrival Python ‘crash course’ as a trusted Imperial based single pathway into programming.

Project Lead

Konstantinos Gkoutzis (k.gkoutzis@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow, Department of Computing

Iro Ntonia (i.ntonia@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow,  Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

Further Details/Experience Required

Two positions available for Imperial students from any department or faculty.  

Between 18th May and 21st August - starting at part-time in term-time and full-time in Summer break.  

Python Primer recruitment ad

Summary

Educators routinely use role models and historical figures to introduce concepts and relationships. In science and engineering, these characters are typically white, Western men, which impacts students’ self-identity and sense of belonging. Contextualizing the Curriculum (CtC) will expand curricula to include modern-day diverse figures, cultures, and perspectives. This initiative is not solely concerned with knowledge but also place, power, purpose and identity. In this StudentShapers project, we will work on diversifying the ESE and Materials UG curriculum content and resources and implement new teaching strategies. This important and challenging project will be conducted in partnership with students and staff across multiple job families in Materials and Earth Sciences.

The ongoing and active involvement of StudentShapers, will catalyse the success of CtC. This project will build on a collaborative effort between staff and students who will develop an authentic partnership. Imperial students are the best-placed people to determine how and why modern-day relevant figures and diverse cultures impact their studies, sense of belonging and university experience.

What you will do: You will help creating a website that includes a database of diverse role models and content that contextualises knowledge and understanding. You will contribute to implement the CtC project at departmental and Imperial scales (e.g. help with delivery of the CtC I-Explore module). You will also develop an evaluation framework (including focus group and interviews) to understand the impact of contextualized curricula on student’s self-identity and sense of belonging and write Educational Research papers.

Project Lead

Valentin Laurent (v.laurent@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow in Pedagogic Transformation, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Eleonora D'Elia (eleonora.delia10@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Department of Materials

Jessica Wade (jessica.wade@imperial.ac.uk), Assistant Professor in Functional Materials, Department of Materials

Sophia Quazi (s.quazi@imperial.ac.uk), Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Coordinator,  Department of Mechanical Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

Two positions available for UG students from ESE or Materials departments.  One position available for a PhD student from the same departments.  

UG positions: Part-time between May 2026, and July 2027, with an opportunity for three weeks full-time in July 2026.  

PhD position: Part-time between May 2026 and July 2027.  

Contextualising the Curriculum WP3 2026 pt recruitment ad

Summary

This project is designed to create a biweekly newsletter called the Silwood Park Press. The press will incorporate events, activities and information that is happening on campus (& potentially beyond) and will be interest to the Silwood Park community. With the aim to assist community building, engage students into university life and build a cohesive community from the very start of term.
This project has been designed to operate with high levels of collaboration between staff members and StudentShapers. Here are some key partnership principles which will be demonstrated throughout the Project:

• Co-design: StudentShapers to actively shape the newsletter's purpose, design, and content.
• Shared decision-making: Staff and StudentShapers jointly influence project direction.
• Student voice and representation: The newsletter to reflect the needs and interests of the broader student community.
• Collaborative evaluation: StudentShapers to lead in reviewing impact and identifying improvements through student feedback

Project Lead

Clara Bradberry (c.scott@imperial.ac.uk), Student Experience Coordinator, Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park)

Further Details/Experience Required

Part-time during Autumn and Spring term (7 weeks each, 14 in total).  

3 positions available.  

Masters and PhD students in Life Sciences (Silwood Park).  

Silwood Park Press recruitment ad.pdf

Summary

Are you a student with an interest in shaping your course’s reading list materials? Are you interested in critical evaluation of resources?

This project aims to partner with students to review the quality of open educational resources (OERs) in their subject areas and identify relevant OERs that could complement the existing resources found in their reading lists. OERs are learning, teaching and research materials that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license and that allow reuse by others.

Student partners will use their subject knowledge and critical evaluation skills to find and evaluate the content in OERs relevant to specific modules in their programme and reflect how these complement their learning journey. They will also have the opportunity to identify gaps in OER provision in their subject area and co-write a case study with project leads to reflect on the project and their experience of working with OERs.

Project Lead

Irene Barranco Garcia (i.barranco-garcia@imperial.ac.uk), Copyright and Scholarly Communications Librarian

Ella Burrows (ella.burrows@imperial.ac.uk), Acquisitions and Metadata Officer

Heather Lincoln (h.lincoln@imperial.ac.uk), Liaison Librarian (Business, Education, Culture & Communication)

Further Details/Experience Required

12 weeks part-time across Autumn and Spring term (6 hours per week).

3 positions available.

Undergraduate students in Year 2 and above from any faculty are eligible.

Open Educational Resources in Partnership with the Library ad.pdf

Summary

The transition to Canvas represents one of the most significant digital shifts for Imperial - one where active learner perspective and genuine student partnership will be essential for our long-term success.

Joining the Faculty of Medicine as a Canvas Shaper, you will work as an active collaborator and professional peer alongside educational designers, academic leads and other students. Supported by dedicated mentoring and line management within the Digital Education Office (DEO), you will evaluate Canvas course designs and approaches, identify real-time student navigation friction points, and co-design learner-centric digital solutions. While recruited from MBBS and BMB programmes, the insights and transferable design patterns you develop will help inform digital education practices across the wider Faculty of Medicine portfolio, including postgraduate provision.

Project timelines and details provided in the linked recruitment ad below.  

Project Lead

William Moindrot (w.moindrot@imperial.ac.uk) Senior Learning Designer, Faculty of Medicine Centre

Sohag Saleh (s.saleh@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Medicine Centre

Further Details/Experience Required

12 weeks part-time from 19th October.  

6 Positions available.  

Undergraduate MBBS or BSc Medical Biosciences students are eligible.  

Canvas Shapers 2026 recruitment ad.pdf

Summary

The term international mobility refers to any international programme or opportunity undertaken during your studies which usually involves spending a period of time abroad, for example Year Abroad, IROP, international placements for research, industry, study and internships, Medical Electives and PGR Global Fellows Programmes (list not exhaustive).

International mobility can be a transformative and rich experience with a diverse range of benefits, such as enhancing skills, networks, confidence and academic attainment. Imperial is committed to providing excellent international opportunities, however, mobility also has an environmental impact which cannot be ignored and should be considered in the context of the 2026-2031 Sustainable Imperial strategy.

This StudentShapers project aims to develop new student facing resources to address and embed sustainability considerations in international mobility. This might include, for example, resources to advise or inform students about sustainability related issues pre-departure, encouraging students to make greener choices whilst abroad or consider climate education opportunities and what can be learned about sustainability from spending time in a new country.

This StudentShapers project offers the opportunity to influence a central initiative that will have wide circulation to students taking part in international mobility opportunities during their studies.

Project Lead

Bethyn Yates (b.yates@imperial.ac.uk), International Relations Adviser (Global Mobility), College Headquarters

Further Details/Experience Required

6 weeks part-time between November-December, with a final week full-time during the first week of Winter break.

4 positions available.

Students in Year 2 and above from any faculty are eligible.  

Student partners should have an interest in international opportunities and travel as well as sustainability. Students who have first-hand experience of participating in an international programme or opportunity during their studies are encouraged to apply, but this is not essential.

Embedding sustainability ad.pdf