I am an experienced doctoral supervisor with senior supervisor status, a researcher, academic practitioner, and published academic author with a record of high-quality research outputs and numerous presentations at international conferences and symposia.
During my professional career I have held teaching and research roles at four UK universities. I have had a number of teaching, external examiner, evaluator, subject adviser and external validation panel member roles for postgraduate provision at UK universities and universities overseas including in Bahrain, Qatar, Rwanda and Kenya.
My research explores the possibilities and potential of local democracy, democratic practice, community, voice, and agency. Social justice and inclusive approaches to the development of academic practice are themes which coalesce in my research as connective strands across the body of my work.
I have experience of teaching on undergraduate, postgraduate and professional development programmes at UK universities and overseas. I have been an assessor for colleagues applying for Fellow and Senior Fellow HEA/Advance HE recognition at York St John University and Manchester Metropolitan University. I have a strong record of doctoral theses supervisions, including doctoral supervisions through to completion. I have examined doctoral theses at York St John University, the University of Brighton, the University of Derby, Leeds Beckett University, Liverpool Hope University and the University of Nottingham, as well as internationally at the University of Sydney and Queensland University of Technology.
My research and publications critique the centralizing tendencies of much current education policy and its relation to community and democracy in local, national, and global contexts. This theme is explored in its national and international dimensions for instance in my work in relation to the discourse of ‘teaching excellence’ in higher education policy and cosmopolitan perspectives on academic leadership with significance for policy and practice.
My work is underpinned by a commitment to social justice and a focus throughout my publications is the evisceration of local democratic structures of governance, a critique of the centralized appropriation of power and the impact of this on local democracy and teacher autonomy in the school sector. The theme of student voice(s) and agency has also been prominent in my research and publications relating to co-creation, pedagogical partnerships and democratic and inclusive approaches to the development of academic practice in higher education.
I have disseminated my work widely through published outputs and also through numerous presentations at international conferences and symposia.
Professional memberships and affiliations
I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (FRSA), a Recognised Research Supervisor for doctoral researchers by the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) and a Recognised Professional Practitioner in Advising by the UK Advising and Tutoring Association (UKAT RPA). I am also a member of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and a member of the editorial board for the journal Research in Education and the International Journal of Educational Methodology, and I have co-edited a Special Issue of the International Journal of Comparative Education and Development (2019).
I have reviewed book proposals and manuscript submissions for publishers including Bloomsbury, David Fulton, Pearson, and Sage. I review articles for a number of academic journals including the International Journal of Comparative Education and Development, Educational Review, the European Journal of Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, Power and Education, and Pastoral Care in Education.
