Geography, Geology and the Environment

I studied at The University of Nottingham from 2004 to 2008, graduating with a BSc Hons Degree in Geography and an MSc in Environmental Management. Between graduating and coming to Keele in January 2011 I lived and worked in Australia for over a year and worked in a secondary school in Manchester. At Keele I work part-time in two different job roles, these are:

1. Project Officer: for a three year research project funded by the Higher Education Academy’s National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (HEA NTFS), entitled: ‘Hybrid problem-based learning: a scalable approach to sustainability education?’. This project is a collaboration between Keele University, The University of Manchester and Staffordshire University. The project focuses on the development of sustainability education and graduate attributes within the student population using an interdisciplinary hybrid problem-based learning (PBL) approach. To find out more about the project please visit our website.

2. Research Assistant: for a two year HEA GEES funded project. This project involves an innovative initiative being undertaken to create a culture of sustainability at Keele University by a group of students from the BSc Environment and Sustainability course who have turned a standard 1960s bungalow on campus into an exemplar of sustainable living; the ‘sustainable student house’ (SSH). My research role focuses on evaluating the impact of the SSH on the wider Keele community and compares the impacts (environmental, financial, and behavioural) of ‘normal’ student living with that of the SSH students. To find out more about the project please have a look at the student's website and blog.

I also worked as a researcher on a project which developed interactive resources, activities and advice for students on interdisciplinary sustainability degree programmes: Interactive Resources for Interdisciplinary Sustainability (IRIS).

I am in the second year of my PhD research which focuses on the evolution (over roughly the last 30 years) of the Sustainable Development (SD) agenda within the Higher Education (HE) sector in England. I am exploring the sustainability movement in relation to the backdrop of Neoliberal and New Public Management (NPM) political-economic influence within the sector stemming from successive Neoliberal government regimes since the late 1970s and 80s. My interests include: the effects that major economic, managerial and governance reforms within English HE have had on macro and micro-systems of education/teaching, research, and other aspects of university life; the ways in which these systems enable and/or restrict the evolution of the SD agenda; the extent to which the ideologies of Neoliberalism and NPM are contradictory and/or complimentary to the traditional roles, functions and purpose of HE.

I work as a course developer and facilitator on Keele’s only sustainability based free-elective module which is open to all first years; entitled ‘Greening Business: Employability and Sustainability’. This module provides students with a comprehensive introduction to the environmental responsibilities of businesses and builds the practical skills needed to improve environmental performance in the workplace. We aim to build sustainability capabilities and life skills within the student population as well as professional employability skills through a focus on team work, diplomacy and problem solving.