Project Directory 24-25

Summary

For this project we are looking for two participants to collaborate on the discovery and testing of novel membrane materials for use in the undergraduate teaching labs. For this project your role would require you to fabricate membranes, test those membranes and develop novel ideas on how these materials can be used to best 3rd year students about the subject of membrane separation. 

For this project we would like to highlight the importance of sustainability in our teaching. The project will consider economic, environmental and educational sustainability. Student partners will take ownership by developing a research plan alongside the project staff partner, Dr James Campbell, therefore previous understanding of membrane separation and materials is a requirement. You will select your own goals, and aims, and timeframe to give you the experience of working on a truly self-motivated project. This would be an ideal bridge to the work carried out during a 4th year research project. 

By the end of the project we intend to produce suite of materials, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and instructional handouts for a range of separation membrane fabrication methodologies. These will then be used in the following year UG labs.  

Project Lead

James Campbell (j.campbell10@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Chemical Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

11 weeks part-time (half a day a week) between January and March.  

2 positions available.  Chemical Engineering students with experience working with membranes or studying membrane separations.

Economic and Environmentally friendly membranes ad

Summary

The project aims to redesign the 1st year design challenge in Bioengineering to focus on authentic Bioengineering design problems. This will be done in collaboration with the prosthetics society at Imperial, whose members initial proposed the idea. This student-led society is formed of students from across the college with an interest in prosthetics. The society works on designing and building assistive devices, with an aim to enter these into the international Cybathlon competition. Members of the society have proposed that they could put forward design problems that they are facing as the basis of the design challenge. The StudentShapers project aims to take this idea and develop the appropriate resources to enable this to become part of the curriculum.

This would include:

• Developing the design brief(s) that form the basis of the design challenge.
• Redeveloping the introductory workshop session to be delivered by the staff member
• Scoping, design and co-production of additional digital teaching resources (e.g. videos and or quizzes) to support the design challenge (anticipated to be around transmission systems and actuators).
• Reviewing the assessment and marking scheme
• Design of a celebration event (e.g. Demo day, mini conference)

This would be done as part of a team comprising teaching fellows, department technicians and the student shapers.

Project Lead

Maria Parkes (maria.parkes04@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Strategic Teaching Fellow, Bioengineering

Further Details/Experience Required

Three Engineering or Bioengineering students from Year 2 or above.  Membership of the prosthetics society or project experience in prosthetics would be highly desirable.

One half-day a week for nine weeks during Spring term, starting in January.  

Redesigning the Bioengineering design challenge recruitment ad

Summary

Portfolios are widely used in medical school programmes to showcase individual educational, 
research, ethical, personal, and professional development. We have developed initial plans for a student held portfolio with previous Student Shapers. We now wish to take forward those plans but would value Student partnership to do this, so we ensure the portfolio is as student-centred and engaging as possible.

Student partners will:
• Participate and collaborate in the planning, development, and design stages as well as the evaluation process of the portfolio. 
• Use your networks to explore what your peers would like from a portfolio
• Participate in this project to suit your schedule, but must commit to working on the project roughly 3 hours a week
• Be primarily supervised by a Dr Noreen Ryan and the Digital team

The successful candidates for this project would have the following attributes: ability to work both independently and within a team, proficient IT skills, flexible approach, and the ability to critically appraise research papers. 

At the end of this project, you will gain a greater understanding of designing higher education learning & assessment tools. The project will help you prepare for professional practice after you graduate, as portfolios are essential to every medical professional throughout their career. By engaging in this project, you'll have the chance to cultivate invaluable professional capabilities including project management, collaborative teamwork, self-reliance, accountability, and effective negotiation within a supportive and realistic workplace environment.

Project Lead

Noreen Ryan, (noreen.ryan@imperial.ac.uk), Quality Healthcare Domain Lead, School of Public Health

Further Details/Experience Required

Two positions available.  Phase 1B or 1C Medical students.  30 half-day sessions, split across two academic years, between February 2025 and July 2026.  

Evaluating a student professional portfolio recruitment ad

Summary

Feedback from PhD students in the Faculty of Medicine has identified a need for increased provision of bioinformatics training and support. In particular, students whose research is primarily wet lab focused, but who need to exceptionally use a specific tool or method to analyse complex experimental data, would like to be able to access high-quality training on-demand. A local network of peer learners, who could provide quick answers to simple questions, would also be beneficial. This project aims to establish a framework that can be used to provide this via the following objectives:

1. Identify the most useful way for ad-hoc bioinformatics learning and support to be structured and delivered.
2. Build an exemplar training unit whose structure can be readily applied to additional topics.

Throughout this project, students will partner with a Senior Teaching Fellow, a Research Associate, and an eLearning Technologist, who together have relevant education and subject-specific expertise.

As a student partner, you will first be asked to review existing introductory bioinformatics training from the MRes Cancer Informatics programme at Imperial. In doing this, you will gain an increased understanding of the topics covered and engage with analytical tools and approaches which you may be able to apply to your current or future research projects. Training related to the R programming language as well as quality control and data visualisation is suggested as a starting point due to its relevance across disciplines. However, there is flexibility to change this based on the interests of all the student partners.

Project Lead

Elaina Maginn (e.maginn@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Medicine Centre

Further Details/Experience Required

Research degree students across any Medicine department, in any year.  3 positions available.  

Part-time (half a day a week) for six months, commencing October 2024.  

• focused on wet lab research.
• have limited (or no!) knowledge or experience in bioinformatics skills but wish to learn them.
• interested in developing skills related to learning design and evaluation, particularly those relevant to digital education.

Bioinformatics training resource recruitment ad

Summary

The Clinical Communication team would like to recruit student shapers to assist in designing and developing a guided online learning package for history taking for Ys 2 and 3. This will be based on existing learning materials produced by the Clinical Communication Team. The purpose of the online learning is to avoid any repetition in the classroom and make better use of students’ time, to develop a resource that they can go back to throughout the entirety of the curriculum as they develop different aspects of history taking alongside their clinical learning.

More importantly, this would allow teaching staff to use existing teaching time more effectively by covering other issues connected with patient contact which may not typically be covered on the existing schedule but are often observed or experienced by students on their clinical placements. Several aspects of challenging communication related to patient interactions have been experienced by students in 1C.  These aspects such as de-escalation and managing inappropriate comments are currently covered in 3a teaching but we would like to introduce them earlier to spiral learning and prepare students better for the challenges of clinical placement. The online learning package for history taking would allow us to free up time to advance the students’ learning experience on these more specialised topics to reinforce students’ preparation for practice. It is key that this change is made by fully incorporating the perspectives of students (student shapers) who are on the receiving end of our teaching. For this project we would like to recruit student shapers from Year 4 or 5 as they will have had exposure to the early years learning, will have a good understanding of maximising their learning time both in the classroom and for independent study and will already have familiarity with our teaching on history taking. 

The project aligns closely with the vision of Imperial’s Learning and Teaching Strategy to better apply interactive teaching techniques and to enhance a sense of collaboration and community between students in the classroom and studying online. More specifically, the project will capitalise on the mix of digital vs on campus delivery ensuring this works to best effect to effectively balance learning workload.

Involving students in the design and development of this package alongside the input from the CC team would maximise the opportunity for improved student learning experience. This innovation would afford the mutual expertise (from staff and students) to inform the online materials and also the additional teaching topics within the existing timetabled slots allocated. All of this will have a longer-term impact, building staff student partnerships and ensuring that the responsiveness of teaching and learning is fully optimised. The eventual GOL will be revised and sustained by the CC team in their annual evaluation and revision of teaching materials based on student feedback.

Specific benefits to student partners:

• The Digital team will train students in how to design guided online learning.
• The students will have very close dialogue with staff and understand the collaborative process of educational resource development.
• The students will develop skills in the development of digital educational resource.
• The students will develop team working skills.
• The project will provide the basis for an application as an associate fellow of the HEA.
• The students will develop an understanding and gain insight into developing & designing teaching materials.
• The students will become extremely familiar with the content of the medical history which is likely to greatly enhance their clinical learning and clinical practice.

Project Lead

Ged Murtagh, (g.murtagh@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Lecturer in Clinical Communication, Surgery and Cancer

Further Details/Experience Required

Year 5 ICSM students, two positions available.  

20 half-days a week, between October and March (with a break for Christmas) 

History taking for Medical students recruitment ad

Summary

Portfolios serve as useful tools for showcasing the attainment of skills and attributes through exemplars, feedback and reflection. The aim of this project is to design a bespoke and adaptable ePortfolio where BMB students can monitor their professional skills attainment to prepare for diverse careers both inside and outside academia. 

Student BMB partners will:

•   Participate and collaborate in the various stages of portfolio development: 

                1. Identifying key professional skills to develop

               2. Evaluating current college-wide resources available to support identified skills                                     development

               3. Determining if any additional resources are needed to support the identified skills                               attainment

               4. Conceptualising the virtual portfolio 

• Seek inputs from and work alongside fellow BMB students 
• Partner with BMB Teaching Fellows- Dr Nitya Krishnan (Feedback Literacy Lead) and Dr Lydia Durant (Careers and Y2-Y3 Transition Lead). 

Through engagement in this project, you will gain a greater understanding of designing higher education learning & assessment tools. You will be able to foster several professional attributes, including project management, teamwork and collaboration, reliability, feedback literacy and negotiation within a collaborative workplace environment. Thus, this project will help you prepare for your future professional life, whatever career path you choose. You also will be able to develop learning resources that will benefit you and other students in the BMB community.

The successful candidates for this project would have the following attributes: the ability to work both independently and within a team, proficient IT skills, and a flexible and creative approach. Proficient knowledge of whiteboarding tools such as Miro or Canva is desirable.

Project Lead

Lydia Durant (l.durant@imperial.ac.uk), Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Medicine Centre

Nitya Krishnan (n.krishnan@imperial.ac.uk), Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Medicine Centre

Further Details/Experience Required

Undergraduate students enrolled on the BSc Medical Biosciences (BMB) course across all three years. 6 positions are available: 2 students per academic year across all three years.

EPortfolio for BMB UG students recruitment ad

Summary

What makes this project unique?

We are inviting you to take part in a unique collaboration where you will be directly involved in shaping the future of assessment and feedback for students across Imperial. This opportunity is not to be missed and the scale of this project will see you operate in a network which stretches the breadth of the whole institution.

Background

Assessment and feedback are critical components of the learning experience at Imperial and we recognise that it is an area where improvements are needed to support the student experience. The University has made a commitment to improve assessment and feedback experiences by setting up a 2 year project to review and refine assessments across all faculties. The University has set up an Assessment and Feedback Monitoring and Advisory group to spearhead a comprehensive university-wide improvement in these areas. As part of the initial phase of this initiative, staff Faculty Review Coordinators have been recruited to work within faculties and departments to progress this work and ensure collaboration between students and staff on this project. The next phase of this initiative is to facilitate a partnership between yourselves, as students, and staff in faculties, in making meaningful changes to how assessment and feedback are received by staff and students alike.

This project is coordinated by the Education Office however, you will be working with your peers, elected student representatives and the staff Faculty Review Coordinators in your own faculty.

What activities can you get involved with?

This project is up to you and your respective Faculty Review Coordinator to shape as you are the experts in your own departments. The project has an overall ambition to reduce the assessment burden and improve feedback processes across all programmes. You will do this by working with student representatives who capture the student voice and the Faculty Review Coordinators who will support you in the implementation of a process for realising these ambitions and improving the student experience of assessment and feedback.

This will be a collaborative process between you and the Faculty Review Coordinators, some areas that you may wish to consider are:

• Data gathering of current assessments
• Creation of assessment calendars and templates
• Creation of a checklist for developing new assessments and practices
• Capturing and including the student voice through working with student representatives

What will you gain?

By taking part in this project, you will have the opportunity to gain a range of skills and knowledge such as:

• Gaining insights into the assessment and feedback processes at the university
• Opportunities to engage with the wider student body to facilitate change
• Collaboration with the student representative network
• Skills in a range of project management areas such as data capture and change processes
• Access to staff networks

The long-term impact will be sustained through the ongoing support of the Assessment and Feedback Monitoring and Advisory Group until 2026, with the intention of integrating successful strategies into Business As Usual (BAU) activities beyond this timeframe and ultimately changing disciplinary assessment culture. Embedding these changes into standard practices will ensure that the benefits are lasting and continue to evolve with student needs.

As part of the project, you will also take place in a workshop with some of the staff partners involved and this will be communicated to you upon confirmation of recruitment.

Project Lead

Amandip Bisel (amandip.bisel@imperial.ac.uk), Head of Education and Student Experience Strategy Projects, Education Office

Pippa Greenwood (p.greenwood@imperial.ac.uk), Education Projects Manager, Education Office

Further Details/Experience Required

Undergraduate students in Year 2 and above across all faculties. We welcome applications from students of other levels of study if you have a particular interest in helping to shape assessment and feedback changes in your departments.

10 weeks part-time, between November and March inclusive of a Christmas break.  

Assessment recruitment ad

Summary

As part of Imperial’s Race Equality Charter (REC) Action Plan, the Graduate School (to be known as the Early Career Researcher Institute from 01 October), has, for the last 3 years, delivered an event (online and in-person) for Minority Ethnic undergraduate students interested in postgraduate education at Imperial.  The event comprises short talks, Q&A and networking. 

The short talks are delivered by a panel comprising students, who talk about their lived experiences at Imperial, and staff who talk about the admissions process, applying to Imperial, top tips, and funding opportunities, as well as the broader support available to Minority Ethnic students at Imperial.

Despite concerted marketing efforts which have resulted in a good number of registrations to attend the event (87, 63 and 156 respectively for the events delivered in 2021, 2022 and 2023), this has not translated into actual attendees (45, 25 and 15 respectively for the event delivered in 2021, 2022 and 2023). 

To help us move forward and deliver an event which is meaningful and helpful to undergraduate students, we are looking for student shapers to lead the design and development of a fully costed revised event which will be delivered by the Early Career Researcher Institute in autumn 2025. 

It is expected that good practice and input from the Faculties will be sought in developing the event, as well as research into what other institutions offer in this regard.

The outline objectives for the event are listed below, but we expect that student shapers will refine these as the project develops:

• Give a sense of what it is like to undertake a Master’s degree and research at Imperial
• Demystify the application/admissions process
• Provide information on funding/scholarships
• Showcase support available to Minority Ethnic students at Imperial
• Contribute towards an increase in the number of Minority Ethnic students studying postgraduate education (Masters and Research degrees) at Imperial.

The project will start in November 2024 and will complete in February 2025.  In November, student shapers will meet with the project team for a briefing session.  During the latter part of November and throughout December and early January, student shapers will be expected to carry out the following tasks:

1. A desk-based review of what other institutions provide in relation to supporting minority ethnic undergraduates thinking about postgraduate education
2. A survey of individuals who registered to attend one of the previous iterations of the event but did not attend on the day. The purpose of this is to explore why they did not attend and to find out what would have made the event more attractive.
3. Discuss good practice initiatives being carried out by the Faculties to support minority ethnic undergraduates thinking about postgraduate education.
4. Host one focus group per Faculty with up to 6 students (Master’s and PhD) and one online alumni focus group. The purpose of the focus groups is to explore further what would be most helpful for students and to explore ideas which came through as a result of the discussions with the Faculty and the desk-based review.
5. During mid-late January, being the design work for the event, which will also include a method to assess its impact.
6. By 14 February 2025, submit the costed proposal to the project team.

Student shapers will be supported throughout the project by a dedicated member of staff from the Early Career Researcher Institute. 

Project Lead

Laura Lane (l.lane@imperial.ac.uk), Head of Strategy and Operations, Graduate School

Further Details/Experience Required

Research degree students across any Faculty or department.  5 positions available.  

We are looking for students across all stages of the research degree, who have insight and understanding of the educational experience of minority ethnic students, the challenges they face within education and navigating Imperial life. 

We would also especially like to hear from research degree students who have previously studied a Master’s degree at Imperial.

12 weeks part-time, commencing 11 November - 14th February

Designing an event for Minority Ethnic UG students recruitment ad

Summary

Imperial Experience is the university's strategy to deliver a holistic student experience. As part of this initiative, the Accessible Student Communications Project was established, bringing together staff from across the institution. The next phase of this project is to facilitate a partnership between staff and students to make meaningful changes.

We seek enthusiastic and engaged students to help the university make policies and processes more accessible to your fellow students. Outputs from this work are likely to feature on the Imperial website. 

A report by Deloitte found that 90% of people do not read the policies they sign, often because these documents are densely worded, overly complicated, and difficult to understand. Students often access these documents under stress, particularly around assessments, making them even more impenetrable. This project is crucial for engaging students and staff to reduce these barriers.

What you will do

This project has three phases:

1. Research and Fact-Finding: Identify which documents are problematic and why and work with Staff Partners on a plan to approach these.
2. Evaluation and Rewriting: Work with staff partners and others in the university to rewrite these documents in plain language.
3. Presentation: Create Animated Inclusive Personae to present the information in a student-friendly way. This might also include designing new forms and email templates.

What you will gain

By taking part in this project, you will have the opportunity to gain a range of skills and knowledge such as:

• Experience working in inclusion, policy, and communication.
• A better understanding of how institutional policy and processes work.
• Working with a diverse group of students and staff.

Project Lead

Pippa Greenwood (p.greenwood@imperial.ac.uk), Education Projects Manager, Education Office

Further Details/Experience Required

Four positions available for students from any department or Faculty, in any year of study, including Postgraduate students.  An interest in work in inclusion, policy, or communication within their chosen disciplines would be desirable but not essential.  

Eleven weeks part-time during term with a full-time week during Easter break.  Between January-March.  

Accessible Comms with AIP recruitment ad

Summary

This project will involve engaging across Imperial’s diverse student body to bring representative voices into CfAE’s (Centre for Academic English) curriculum design. CfAE will partner with you to gather invaluable qualitative data through a series of student-led focus groups on how Imperial can:

• meet the communication demands of the ‘Science for humanity’ mission of Imperial’s Learning and Teaching Strategy;
• support all students in developing the lifelong communication skills that are essential to their career;
• expand and improve how Imperial addresses the crucial communication aspect of student assessment and feedback in a scalable and sustainable way.

In collaboration with student partners, you will develop and engage in three focus group discussions, with incentives and refreshments for participants. The aim of these discussions is to provide us with a clearer understanding of students’ perspectives on Imperial’s emerging communication context following the pandemic and the emergence of generative AI. You will then have 2 half-days to produce an evidence-based set of recommendations on how CfAE’s existing expertise can contribute to improving communication at Imperial and how to market this to ensure student buy-in.

Your recommendations will give us input on how to build an accessible, collaborative and supportive space/environment that fully responds to Imperial students’ expectations – a space where students can improve their communication in an environment they have helped shape.

Through this partnership, you will learn how to run effective focus groups, analyse the qualitative data from these groups and present your findings to the CfAE team in a supportive environment.

Project Lead

June Hammond (june.hammond@imperial.ac.uk) Teacher of English for Academic Purposes, Institute for Extended Learning

Robin Mowat (r.mowat@imperial.ac.uk) Senior Teacher of English for Academic Purposes, Institute for Extended Learning

Andrew Northern (a.northern@imperial.ac.uk) Teacher of English for Academic Purposes, Institute for Extended Learning

Further Details/Experience Required

Four undergraduate student partners from the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Natural Sciences and/or the Faculty of Medicine. We are ideally hoping for at least one student to represent each Faculty.   

Six half-days of engagement between January and March.  

CfAE 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 explore and analyse curriculum gap and barriers to equality, diversity and inclusivity in Higher Education. 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, which includes undergraduate (UG) and doctoral (PhD) candidates, 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. Students will be involved in gathering, analysing and disseminating data.

What you will do: You will conduct Educational research by assessing current curriculum gaps in the curriculum (e.g. non-Western/ non-white contributions to science and engineering) and exploring how elements of the curriculum can be barriers to diversity and impacts sense of belonging. You will gather feedback from academics and students through focus groups and interviews. You will also contact key stakeholder communities (e.g. RAEng, IOM3, GeolSoc) and help establish an external Advisory Board for the CtC project.

Project Lead

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

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

Jessica Wade (jessica.wade@imperial.ac.uk), Lecturer in Functional Materials, Materials

Amina Riamah, Undergraduate, Materials

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

Further Details/Experience Required

Two UG students from Yr1, 2 or non-graduating Yr 3 ESE or Materials, and 1 PhD from 1st or 2nd year of ESE or Materials .  

Part-time (half-day a week) for 67.5 weeks spread across 18 months.  Commencing January-July 2026.  

Contextualising the Curriculum recruitment ad