SEB Conference Prague 2024

Dr Claire Garden

Associate Professor, Edinburgh Napier University

No bio provided

Stephen Stewart

Head of Skills Delivery,

Steve is Head of Skills at the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult where he leads the Advanced Therapies Apprentice Programme with over 350 apprentices across 50+ businesses. He is also responsible for several other programmes with the objective of building skills and capabilities in the sector, including an Online Training Platform, a data science tool to support career choices and mixed-reality projects. His previous roles include HR posts as GSK where he developed and implemented an international early talent programme and led HR at a pharmaceutical manufacturing site.

Steve is a member of several UK bodies focussing on EDI and early talent such as the Apprentice Diversity Champions Network and the Apprentice Ambassadors Network. He was Chair of the Life Science Trailblazer, which developed the science-based apprenticeship standards used across England. Outside of work, Steve volunteers as a Governor at his local primary school and as a STEM Ambassador.

Dr. Daniela Dietrich

University of Bristol

No bio provided

Jordon Millward

Imperial College London

Jordon is a PhD researcher at Imperial College London, researching how interactions influence life science students' professional identity and career trajectory. He started his career in agriculture following his readings of Animal Behaviour and Welfare at Harper Adams University, where he became a British Poultry scholar. Working within the livestock sector, he developed his passion for teaching by wanting to support the sector, which gave him his start. Continuing to ensure that he has ties to the land-based sector, Jordon is an active beekeeper when not researching or teaching. Capitalising on this passion for the land-based sector, he still maintains an active role in teaching by working alongside organisations like the Brilliant Club whilst ensuring that he maintains his focus on his research, which was motivated by the barriers he saw for his college students and now wanting to find solutions to help students in the higher education sector. He continues looking at different ways to develop his research and teaching skills and how he can enhance representation in the science community, something he has been working on as a member of the SEB OED working group and nomination task force.

Dr. Luke McCrone

Imperial College London

Luke McCrone is a Research Associate in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, primarily interested in the nexus between learning spaces, student learning behaviour and institutional strategy. His desire to improve the student experience began representing over 20,000 students at Imperial College London during a transformative sabbatical as Deputy President of Education. He has since partnered with students and staff across diverse STEM departments, leveraging his research insights to inform the redesign of formal, transitional and informal learning spaces. Luke has used novel mixed methods to evaluate these spaces and is continually interested in how an ecological way of thinking can inform their (re)design for more student-centred active learning. His most recent research has explored factors impacting student sense of belonging, including as part of Imperial's five-year longitudinal Belonging, Engagement and Community (BEC) project.

Dr. Luke McCrone

Imperial College London

Luke McCrone is a Research Associate in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, primarily interested in the nexus between learning spaces, student learning behaviour and institutional strategy. His desire to improve the student experience began representing over 20,000 students at Imperial College London during a transformative sabbatical as Deputy President of Education. He has since partnered with students and staff across diverse STEM departments, leveraging his research insights to inform the redesign of formal, transitional and informal learning spaces. Luke has used novel mixed methods to evaluate these spaces and is continually interested in how an ecological way of thinking can inform their (re)design for more student-centred active learning. His most recent research has explored factors impacting student sense of belonging, including as part of Imperial's five-year longitudinal Belonging, Engagement and Community (BEC) project.

Professor Susanne Voelkel

Dean of School of Life Sciences, University of Liverpool

Professor Susanne Voelkel is Dean of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool. After her PhD in Animal Physiology at the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf she spent four years working as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. In 2001 she joined the University of Liverpool where she teaches in the areas of Zoology and Biochemistry. Susanne has a keen interest in educational research and has published in the areas of student engagement, assessment and feedback. She holds a Postgraduate Masters in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, and she is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a National Teaching Fellow.

Anne Margaret Tierney

Associate Professor , Learning and Teaching Academy, Heriot-Watt University

Anne Tierney is an Associate Professor in the Learning & Teaching Academy at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland. Her expertise is in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), Academic Identity of teachers in higher education, and Threshold Concepts associated with engagement with SoTL, especially those that originate from disciplinary backgrounds. Anne is originally a botanist, so much of her work in SoTL comes from a Life Sciences perspective. Anne is Enhancement Themes lead at Heriot-Watt, deputy chair for the Scottish Tertiary Micro-credentials network (2021-23) and deputy director of Improving University Teaching international conference.

Sarah N Gretton

Associate Professor , School of Biological Sciences/ University Education Academy, University of Leicester

Sarah Gretton is an Associate Professor and inaugural Director of University of Leicester’s Education Academy. Sarah initially trained in virology, working on Epstein–Barr virus and hepatitis C virus before moving to the University of Leicester as a Teaching Fellow in 2010. She was awarded a University Distinguished Teaching Fellowship in 2014, and was a finalist for HE Bioscience Teacher of the Year award and won the University of Leicester’s Teaching Excellence award in 2017.  She was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2021. Her current research interests include sustainability, skills development and interdisciplinary science education.

Dr. Katharine Hubbard

Reader in Bioscience Education, University of Hull

Katharine Hubbard is a Reader in Bioscience Education at the University of Hull, where she is also responsible for developing the University of Hull Inclusive Education Framework and awarding gap strategy. Her teaching focusses on cell biology, plant biology and microbiology, as well as inclusive approaches to lab based teaching.

Her educational research focusses on awarding gaps, staff-student partnership and how students engage with scientific literature, while her disciplinary research background is in plant signal transduction. She is a National Teaching Fellow, Senior Fellow of AdvanceHE, former SEB President's Medallist (SEB+ 2017) and RSB HE Bioscience Teacher of the Year (2016). 

: https://www.hull.ac.uk/staff-directory/katharine-hubbard
: @@KEHplantsci

Dr. Nick Freestone

School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry, Kingston University, London

Nick Freestone is an Associate Professor in Physiology and Pharmacology and Course Leader for a suite of undergraduate degrees in Pharmaceutical Science at Kingston University in south west London.  He is co-Chair of the Royal Society of Biology’s “Bridging Awarding Gaps in the Biosciences” Network and a member of the British Pharmacological Society’s Inclusive Pharmacology Education Steering Group. He was also, until recently, an Education Theme Lead for The Physiological Society. In 2014 he was the UK’s Higher Education Bioscience Teacher of the Year as awarded by Oxford University Press and the Higher Education Academy and is now Chair of the panel of judges for this award for the Royal Society of Biology. In 2021 he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for his work in addressing awarding gaps both in his local teaching environment and also nationally.

Dr. Nicola Veitch

University of Glasgow

I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Infection and Immunity within the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow coordinating and teaching Infection Biology and Molecular Biology subjects. I am the Programme Lead for Microbiology degree and Coordinate the Outreach capstone projects in final year across the Life Science degrees in MVLS. My research background includes parasitology and genetics, with specific interests in the molecular biology of African Trypanosomes. I am a Senior Fellow of Advance HE and I undertake Scholarship of Learning and Teaching and Public Engagement as part of my role.

Dr Eva Malone

Edinburgh Napier University

Eva Malone is a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy, National Teaching Fellow, immunologist and associate professor within the School of Applied Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University. She was programme leader for a suite of biological sciences undergraduate programmes accredited by the Royal Society of Biology (2019 – 2023) and has been recognised for her inspiring approach to programme leadership and student support. Eva uses her expertise in learning and teaching and science communication within an interdisciplinary, intersectoral team working with young people at high schools to promote HPV vaccination and reduce vaccine hesitancy. 

Dr. Stewart White

University of Glasgow

I am a senior lecturer in the School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine at the University of Glasgow.  My research interests are in tropical rainforest ecology and ornithology and I am a British Trust for Ornithology ringer and ringing trainer.  Recently I have been involved with the development and delivery of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion materials across our undergraduate degrees and in decolonising the curriculum.

Dr. Sheila Amici-Dargan

University of Bristol, School of Life Sciences

Sheila Amici-Dargan is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol. She is also the outreach, education, and diversity (OED) trustee for the Society of Experimental Biology. Her scientific research career started with a PhD in Biophysics at the University of East Anglia, followed by postdoctoral research positions at the University of California Irvine and MRC Centre for Synaptic Plasticity in Bristol, investigating cellular mechanisms of learning and memory processes. Sheila then chose to swap to a teaching focused pathway in higher education, working for 10 years at Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences before taking up her current post at the University of Bristol in 2020. She is currently seconded for 2 days a week, as a senior academic developer in the University of Bristol’s Curriculum Enhancement Project team and is one of the careers and employability lead in the Faculty of Life Sciences. Sheila has been working with colleagues to explore different approaches to embed employability across the taught undergraduate curriculum and will share staff and student experiences of various ‘embedding employability’ projects at the conference, to stimulate discussion on how we can best support our university students to develop and articulate transversal skills to increase their own employment prospects.