Research description and team can be found at: https://www.arlab.co.uk/ In addition to delivering high quality teaching and leading a team of PhD students and postdocs I've also had additional roles such as Postgrad lead for our division and was Disability Liaison Officer for postgrad taught and research students. I'm convenor of the Tree and Forest Biology group within the Association of Applied Biologists and hosted a conference in November 2023. I redesigned the marking rubrics now rolled out school-wide and continue to engage with pedagogical research with a particular passion for learning activities integrating technology. One of my favourite learning activities involves students collaboratively (using MS Teams) making a documentary video (involving mobile phones and editing software) and they interview an expert from outside the university (via Teams video calls). I discovered the students learn a lot more than just the science throughout this semester-long assessment! I'm a member of the OED (Outreach, Education and Diversity) group of SEB (Society of Experimental Biology) where I get to share with and learn from others.

Research and TeachingResearch description and team can be found at: https://www.arlab.co.uk/Funded by a KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership; Innovate UK); Forestry Commission (Tree Production Innovation Fund) and CASE BBDTP PhD studentship, my lab is very active in tree cutting propagation research. Additional PhD funding supported students working on adventitious root-related projects in Maize, Apples and houseplants, and wider projects on plant physiology in rice, wheat, and plant-microbe interactions. I convene two modules: Plant Science (1st year), Plant Ecophysiology (formerly called Plants and the Soil Environment) (3rd year); And contribute to a number of others in Bioscience (Faculty of Science) and Life Science (Faculty of Medicine and Health Science). When student attendance monitoring became a government requirement, I suggested to our lead learning technologies expert who is a software designer, that we use QR codes instead of paper registers - thanks to his software development this idea has been rolled out university wide - since 2018 this system has collected almost 4 million records from 48 schools and from 2422 staff). I was also nominated for best project supervisor by undergrad project students during the COVID lockdown years and with collaborators at Danish Technical University developed a virtual reality teaching space.

This second prestigious fellowship was intended to learn molecular skills to apply to my long term interest in physiology. During this time the PI left and I supervised a team of 4 PhD students, a technician and a post-doc, I also supervised masters and Erasmus students and was privileged to engage in high quality training courses including the 2 day media and communications training run by Judith Hann (of Tomorrows World) and John Exelby (of BBC 24 hour news).

This prestigious fellowship allowed me to extend my research of adventitious root development and the decline in rooting in cuttings from older plants. I published 6 papers from this two years (see publications list). One of my projects collaborated with pharmacists and chemists to develop a fluorescent strigolactone marker.

I was the first to identify that the plant hormone Strigolactones inhibits adventitious root development of both cuttings and intact Arabidopsis models. This work used mutants and pharmacology studies to explore the interaction with other known root regulators.During this time I also won the Trailblazer competition and the Queensland International Fellowship to visit collaborators in Europe.

Team training of small groups in large 1st year classes - published (see attached)I designed a team training program, trialled and evaluated in 2009 in 16 groups of 4 (out of 140 groups of 4). Then run for whole cohort of 500+ students in 2010 and adjusted slightly and rerun in 2011. BOTN3005 environment to gene activityInvestigation of which style of teaching students prefer and from which they learn more effectively.

Developed teaching materials and taught labs for a large number of classes, including summer schools and undergraduate classes. For example in 2010 (while a PhD student) I designed and delivered the plant module for the Siemens Science Experience (Uni lab activities for High School students during holidays). Other undergraduate tutoring covered 1st year to 3rd year classes and amounted in more than 500 hours of contact teaching and assessment marking.

Graduate Certificate in Higher Education involved taking 4 subjects (modules/courses) with fortnightly classes and assessment over 4 semesters (2 years).