Dr. Rehan Shah is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Mathematics and Engineering Education at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) with research interests in applied mathematics (nonlinear dynamics, analytical mechanics and mathematical modelling) as well as mathematics and engineering education pedagogy (diversification of STEM curricula, threshold concepts and concept inventories, university-industry and community partnerships, embedding ethics and sustainability in mathematics, history of mathematics and physics). He is also the School Lead for Inclusive Scholarship for the Centre for Academic Inclusion in Science and Engineering (CAISE) at QMUL, the School EDI Education Champion and a Queen Mary Research Integrity Champion. His work in these areas was also nominated for the QMUL Education Excellence Award.
Dr. Shah took the lead role on a QMUL-CPE funded community engagement project in 2024 titled 'Locating communities in community-based learning: empowering local community groups in university-community partnerships', which sparked off interdisciplinary academic and community partner engagement across the wider QMUL community.
Following on from his own research into the educational benefits of implementing community-based learning and teaching (CBLT) in the academic curriculum, Dr. Shah liaised with Dr. David Geiringer from the School of History at QMUL to collaborate on this CPE-funded project.
Following receipt of successful funding, he spearheaded a joint workshop at QMUL involving both academics and community partners to explore how community partners experience community-university partnerships. Featuring representatives from multiple community existing partners involved in Dr. Geiringer’s ‘History and Heritage Internship’ module at QMUL, the intention of the workshop was to develop and extend CBLT by foregrounding the voices of local community leaders/representatives as well extend the network of our partners beyond the humanities and social sciences, to enable them to work with the wider university.
The success of the workshop motivated a series of impactful outputs including:
- A joint poster presentation by Dr. Shah and Dr. Geiringer for the QMUL Festival of Education in March 2024, which was very well received by colleagues from the Queen Mary Academy.
- The workshop also resulted in impact within his own School of Engineering and Materials Science, when a senior colleague who attended the workshop was able to gain several community partner contacts and valuable insights, to incorporate in the School’s newly established MSc Engineering Management programme.
- Dr. Shah was also able to disseminate the findings from the workshop with one of the community partners from the Brunel Musuem (who had attended the workshop) at the national UK&I Higher Education Institutional Research Conference (HEIR) in Sept 2024 at Buckinghamshire New University.
- Dr. Shah and Dr. Geiringer’s blog post was the first to be featured on the reinstated CPE’s Engagement Blog website and remains a unique example of impactful interdisciplinary collaboration between the humanities and sciences.
- Dr. Shah was also invited to share his insights and contributions from his work and represent QMUL to be filmed as part of the community engagment learning toolkit being developed by the University of Westminster in Nov 2024. He has also invited the community partner from the Brunel Musuem to join him for this to involve wider engagement and involvement of community organisations.
In summary, Dr. Shah’s qualities of motivation and perseverance towards community-based learning as well as his networking abilities to bring together colleagues from different disciplines and varied roles both within and beyond QMUL, making him a rare academic pioneer and role model for advocating and supporting community and public engagement at QMUL as a CPE Engagement Champion.