I have always been passionate about education, and I have taken every opportunity to develop my skills as a teacher and mentor. My journey in teaching began during my time at the University of Wolverhampton, where I learned the importance of communicating complex ideas with confidence and clarity, whether to a small group or a large audience.
My specific role as a lecturer was to work with apprentice students who were placed with several partner companies, my goal was to upskill them and train them towards completeing a degree in computer science.
While a researcher at Lancaster University, I continued to develop my teaaching skills. I taught modules on Ethics and Professional Studies, as well as Introduction to Maths and Introducing to Embedded Systems.
More recently, I took on a role at Cranfield University, at MK:U - a “start-up” university challenging the UK academic space. Here I was course leader for Digital Technologies Solutions where I taught topics such as Digital Maths and Programming, Robotics and Advanced Programming to apprentice students and staff from partner companies.
These companies included household names such as Mercedes, Santander and Nationwide - as well as defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Roake, MBDA and BAE Systems. I blended together my industry experience and my research knowledge to pioneer teaching using problem-based learning techniques as well as helping to launch the UK’s first Robotics degree apprenticeship.
Alongside my role as senior lecturer I was tasked with mentoring and developing other lecturers, as well as defining the use, policies and practices of AI across the University.