Skip to main content
Queen Mary Academy

Queen Mary Academy Fellowships

Queen Mary Academy Fellowships are high-profile opportunities for staff to develop, share and promote their educational and scholarship practice.

Through this unique scheme, Queen Mary staff can apply for a Fellowship with a remit to address strategic educational needs across the University. Fellows represent the Academy, their School/Institute, Faculty and Queen Mary to internal and external audiences, raising both their own and the institutional academic profile. 

As a Queen Mary Academy Fellow:

  • You will have time to develop and share your educational and scholarship practice which is aligned to Strategy 2030. 
  • You will have the opportunity to raise your profile and develop wider influence across your School/Institute, Faculty and throughout the University.
  • You will join a community of Fellows, contributing and learning from others in turn.
  • You will benefit from regular support meetings with the Academy to help you deliver  and evidence impact for your project beyond your School or Institute.
  • You will have the opportunity to evidence your institutional impact across Queen Mary, helping you to build a case for professional progression, and for sector-wide recognition through HEA Fellowship and associated awards.
  • You will hold the additional title of Queen Mary Academy Fellow for the duration of your secondment.
  • At the end of the Fellowship, a Fellow may apply for a new secondment beyond the initial 12-month period. This will be considered based on outcomes.
  • You will be eligible to join the QMA Fellows Alumni community. 
"QMA Fellowship is an excellent environment to develop your scholarship - very friendly, supportive and inspiring. It opens doors to new ideas, projects and collaboration".
— Nicola Georgiou, School of Law

How a Fellowship works

  • Fellowships are part-time, fixed-term secondments, funded by the Queen Mary Academy. 
  • Secondments must have the support of the Head of School or Institute. 
  • The secondment will normally be approved for an initial period of no more than 12 months, for a maximum 0.2 fte (ie one day a week). Fellowships can also be undertaken in more intensive, shorter blocks of time. 
  • Fellowships should normally begin at the start of a semester, though there can be flexibility if there is a good reason for a different start date.
  • At the end of the Fellowship, a Fellow may apply for a new secondment beyond the initial 12 month period. This will be considered based on outcomes.

Expectations of Queen Mary Academy Fellows

  • A Queen Mary Academy Fellowship is a leadership position with an institutional remit and responsibility. You will therefore be expected to commit to making an active contribution to institutional educational priorities (e.g. sharing best practice, contributing to working groups and Communities of Practice) alongside the requirements of your own project.
  • You will be expected to become an active member of the community of Fellows.
  • To support internal and external promotion of the Fellowship scheme, you should have an up-to-date Queen Mary University staff profile page including a biography and a current photograph.
  • You will be expected to disseminate your work internally and externally (eg presenting at the Festival of Education, producing case studies, posters, conference presentations).
  • You will be expected to provide regular project updates to the Queen Mary Academy and create an end-of-project report. 

How to apply

Step 1

Consider if a Fellowship is right for you. Do you have a specific project that you wish to set up or an area that you want to explore? Book to join one of our information sessions to learn more about the scheme and application process. 

It is worth reflecting on the criteria by which Queen Mary Academy Fellowships are awarded and the expectations of Fellows. Support for your project within your School or Institute and the alignment of your project with School/Institute and University-wide strategic aims are key considerations.  You may find it helpful to attend a 'Get started with Educational Impact' workshop to learn tools for articulating the strategic goals, outcomes and benefits of your planned project. 

Step 2

If you feel that a Fellowship is right for you, you should approach your Head of School/Institute (and line manager if this is a different person). The agreement of your Head of School or Institute Director is required to release you to undertake a Fellowship.  

The Queen Mary Academy can support line managers in any queries they may have about Fellowship arrangements and commitments, but it is expected that conversations about the suitability of the Fellowship from the School/Institute perspective will take place without Queen Mary Academy involvement. 

Step 3

If your School/Institute is supportive of your application, you should complete the Queen Mary Academy Fellowship Application Form [ODT 9KB] and send it to qmacademy@qmul.ac.uk by Monday 6th January 2025. 

What happens next

Fellowship applications are considered by a panel, the members of which are nominated by the Vice-Principal (Education). They will look at the suitability of each application, considering: 

  • Alignment with the University’s 2030 Strategy and existing portfolio of projects and workstream
  • The plan for evaluation and the potential to make a measurable contribution to one or more key strategic priorities  
  • Achievability of project in terms of scope, considering the time allocated and the proposed project outcomes  
  • How well the proposed project fits in with current Fellows’ work (for example if work is already being done on a specific topic, other projects may be prioritised).  
  • How effectively the work can be disseminated, both internally and externally
  • Spread and diversity of Queen Mary Academy Fellows across Schools/ Institutes and Faculties
  • Demonstrable evidence of a successful track record of delivering impactful educational project(s) in your School/Institute, which have clear potential to be scaled up to address strategic needs across the University. 
  • The panel will make a recommendation to the Vice-Principal (Education), who will approve all Fellowship awards. If successful, you will be sent the secondment agreement form, which will need to be signed by you and your Head of School/Institute. 

The Fellowship panel is convened in February. After this meeting, formal buy-out of time will be approved by Heads of School. 

“The overall experience of undertaking the Fellowship was highly enriching and a great learning opportunity. It exposed me to colleagues from various departments and faculties, broadening my professional network and perspective"
— Lilian Schofield, School of Business and Management
A square picture with individual portraits of Queen Mary Academy Fellows

Queen Mary Academy Fellowships are opportunities for staff to develop, share and promote their educational and scholarship practice

A Fellowship provides funded time for projects that align to Queen Mary’s Strategy 2030. Click on the Fellows’ profiles to learn more about each of their projects.

Current Fellows

Paraskevi Argyriou, August 2024 - July 2025                      Profile photo of Paraskevi Argriou

Excellence in Student Employability - Focus: Employability and Graduate Attributes

This project aims to explore ways to embed employability and graduate attributes into the curriculum by developing an Employability Framework and ensuring that real-world experiences are embedded in all programmes via the Principles of Programme Design and ongoing programme review and enhancement processes.

 

Dr Jayne Dennis, July 2024 - July 2025                      Profile photo of Dr Jayne Dennis

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Scholarship 

This project will identify best practice, predominantly but not exclusively within the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences and Queen Mary, in how to support scholars and enable scholarship activity that has a positive impact on the student experience.

Dr Radhika Desai, April 2024 - March 2025                      Dr Radhika Desai portrait

Excellence in Education - Focus: Curriculum Development

The aim of Radhika's project is to develop and deliver an innovative dental undergraduate programme, co-created with students.

 

Dr Jo Elliott September 2024 - September 2025Profile photo of Jo Elliott

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Individualised learning

Jo has taken up a Learner Engagement Analytics (LEA) Fellowship, with joint responsibility for developing a strategy for and driving forward the uptake and enhancement of LEA

 

Professor Elizabeth Gillow September 2024 - August 2025Profile photo of Elizabeth Gillow

Excellence in Education - Focus: Programme Design 

Elizabeth's project will assess the experience of embedding the Principles of Programme Design into a suite of new programmes.      

Professor Gerard Hanlon January 2023 - December 2024 Professor Gerard Hanlon

Excellence in Education - Focus: Inclusive offer 

Gerard’s project seeks to develop a better understanding of how BTEC students learn at college and the transition of BTEC students into university.

Dr Lisa Morrison September 2024 - September 2025 Profile photo of Lisa Morrison

Excellence in Education - Focus: Employability and Graduate Attributes

The Employability Curriculum project seeks to provide a consistent approach to employability in the curriculum.

Dr Usman Naeem May 2024 - May 2026                            Dr Usman Naeem 

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Individualised learning

Usman is academic lead for the use of Learner Engagement Analytics (LEA) at Queen Mary, with specific responsibility for developing a strategy for and driving forward the uptake and enhancement of LEA.

Dr Amiirah Nuckchady October 2024 - October 2025Profile photo of Amiirah Nuckchady 

Excellence in Student Employability - Focus: Employability and Graduate Attributes

This project aims to explore ways to embed employability and graduate attributes into the curriculum, with Amiirah's particular focus being on integrating reflective practice and career management skills. 

Dr Georgy Petrov, September 2024 - September 2025                          Profile photo of Dr Georgy Petrov 

Excellence in Student Employability - Focus: Employability Skills

Georgy’s project aims to conduct a comprehensive review of all undergraduate programmes and modules at the School of Business and Management to systematically embed employability skills into the curriculum.

Professor Louise Younie April 2024 - March 2025                 Profile photo of Dr Louise Younie

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Co-creation

Louise is exploring ways to embed co-creation at the organisational and individual (staff and student) levels, and to increase uptake of co-creation.

Alumni Fellows

Professor Jo Brown, September 2022 - August 2023           

Excellence in Education - Focus: Inclusive offer

Jo's project focussed on the development of educational scholarship at Queen Mary, including scoping the opportunity for a new professional doctorate in Education (EdD)

Dr Stephen Buckingham September 2020 - August 2022     Dr Stephen Buckingham

Excellence in Learning Environment - Focus: Technological advances

Stephen worked on providing a central online hub that provides guidance, resources and motivation, as well as the sharing of experiences and good practice, in the shift to blended learning, 2020-2021.

Professor Graham Easton, October 2023 - October 2024

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Co-creation

The aim of Graham's project is to support co-creation of the medical undergraduate curriculum with students and real patients, and to develop training and resources for wider use in co-creation projects across Queen Mary University. 

Dr Sally Faulkner, August 2023 - July 2024                            Headshot of Sally Faulkner  

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Team Based Learning

Sally has taken up a new Learning and Teaching Enhancement Fellowship, working on Team Based Learning (TBL) alongside Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL). Her Fellowship will investigate the implementation of TBL in programmes and measuring its impact in terms of grade outcomes, self-efficacy and confidence development. She will lead on encouraging and supporting the adoption of this new pedagogy at Queen Mary.

Dr Heather Ford October 2023 - October 2024       Profile photo of Dr Heather Ford

Excellence in Student Engagement - Student-paced Learning Activities

Heather has taken up a new Learning and Teaching Enhancement Fellowship, and is developing a series of self-paced learning activities to integrate ChatGPT into learners’ coding skillset. Her starting point is the integration of ChatGPT into a module called Climate Change in Practice.

 

Dr Nicola Georgiou, March 2024 - July 2024                         Profile photo of Dr Nicola Georgiou

Excellence in Education - Focus: Curriculum Development

Nicola will be working on a comprehensive review of the LLB curriculum.

Dr Nick Hostettler September 2021 - August 2023                Dr Nick Hostettler

Excellence in Education - Focus: Inclusive offer

Nick's work explored how seminar teaching practice on a core first year module can better support learning practices and independent studentship.

Dr Lesley Howell February 2021 - August 2024                      Dr Lesley Howell

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Peer-to-peer learning

Lesley is working on embedding Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) into the curriculum.

 

Dr Jonathan Kennedy January 2023 - August 2024              Dr Jonathan Kennedy

Excellence in Education - Focus: Active global citizen development

Jonathan is looking at the potential for virtual educational exchanges to improve student access to international opportunities. 

Dr Anne Ropiquet October 2023 – October 2024               Dr Anne Ropiquet 

Excellence in Education-Focus - Interdisciplinary programmes

Anne is exploring frameworks facilitating Interdisciplinarity to promote innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches to education.  By fostering collaboration among faculty members and encouraging students to engage with diverse perspectives and knowledge domains,  she aims for graduates to be better equipped to address complex real-world challenges.     

Dr Lilian Schofield, September 2023 - September 2024       Dr Lilian Schofield

Excellence in Education - Focus: Learning by doing

Lilian has taken up a new Learning and Teaching Enhancement Fellowship, and her work will focus on understanding what works in 'learning by doing’ across disciplines and Faculties.

Dr Sharan Sidhu January 2021 - December 2021                     Dr Sharan Sidhu                           

Excellence in Education - Focus: Supportive assessment

Sharan’s project explored whether one or more proctoring methods have potential for use across Queen Mary and if so, whether it should be discipline / subject specific.

Dr James Strong January 2021 - June 2021                            Dr James Strong

Excellence in Student Engagement - Focus: Individualised learning

James’ project goal was to understand how students’ broader experience of studying at Queen Mary University affects their engagement and attainment.

Dr Daniela Tavasci July 2021 - June 2023                                 Dr Daniela Tavasci 

Excellence in Education - Focus: Inclusive offer

Daniela’s project contributed to diversify the curriculum at Queen Mary and explored how teaching with historical perspectives can be a route for a more inclusive education.

Dr Luigi Ventimiglia August 2023 - August 2024                  Dr Luigi Ventimiglia

Excellence in Education - Focus: Inclusive assessment

Luigi is building on his previous fellowship project, the awarding gap tool, to promote diversified assessment and investigate whether it might help to reduce the awarding gaps and contribute to graduate attributes.

Dr Xue Zhou September 2023 - August 2024                       Dr Xue Zhou

Excellence in Student Employability - Focus: Higher-level skill development

The goal of Xue’s project is to provide an extra-curricular opportunity for students at Queen Mary University of London to improve the AI skills and knowledge, as well as to promote the use and adoption of AI technology in their academic and professional pursuits.

Back to top