With a passion for creating authentic and flexible learning environments to facilitate student learning, I embrace a ‘learning by doing’ philosophy. In an expansive career, I have worked as a consultant engineer, an industry team leader, a commercialisation manager and a senior academic, in both the UK and Australia. A recurring theme in all these roles has been to bring academia and industry closer together. Industry engagement in undergraduate and postgraduate courses has a demonstrable significant impact on student retention, in addition to the employability, entrepreneurial and innovation agendas. I have a Bachelor’s Degree with first class honours in Aerospace Engineering, a Post Graduate Diploma in Mathematics, a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. In the thirteen years between finishing my PhD and returning to academia in 2010, I was a senior engineering consultant and manager working on simulation based projects covering a wide number of applications. In 2010, I joined Griffith Enterprise, the commercialisation and technology transfer office of Griffith University (Queensland, Australia), where I learnt about Intellectual Property protection and helped external organisations access the research capabilities, inventions and knowledge based services of the University. In 2014 I joined the newly formed mechanical engineering department at Griffith University as a senior lecturer, teaching advanced fluid mechanics and professional engineering skills. On returning to the UK in 2017, I grabbed the rare opportunity to work with the innovative team at Nottingham Trent University developing new engineering courses.