Dr Tippu Sheriff, Senior Lecturer and Director of Chemical Sciences Programmes
1. Outreach Coordinator for Department of Chemistry (2010-2020). I am passionate about chemistry and carrying out outreach activities for the Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary. I have developed new themes for fun interactive lecture/demonstrations including The Air We Breathe and Chemistry is Kool!, which are delivered both at Queen Mary and in schools. 2. Director of Teaching & Learning (DTL-Chemistry, 2019-present). In NSS 2022, chemistry@QMUL achieved an overall satisfaction score of 90.2% (one of only two departments at Queen Mary that achieved an overall satisfaction score >90%), and the higher than other Russell Group institutions in London (Imperial, UCL and Kings). 3. Inclusive Curriculum Design (2020-present). £4,900 grant from the RSC Inclusion & Diversity Fund in October 2020 to create resources to Highlight Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) contributions to science. This Highlighting Minorities in Chemistry (HMiC) co-creation project was carried out in the summer of 2021 by two Queen Mary Chemistry UG students (Aisha Sharif and Israt-Zahan Chowdhury). We created teacher resources that link to the national curriculum at Key Stage 5 (KS5, A’ level), that are hosted on the SPCS outreach pages and the feedback from teachers has been very positive. To date 143 teachers (from the UK and abroad) have visited the site and these utilized these resources in the classroom.
Further grants from the RSC were obtained in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, Y2 chemistry UG students worked within their tutor groups (~3-6 students, 15 groups in total) to produce posters on “Chemists Across the Continents” to highlight the contribution of a member of the BAME community to chemistry. This project was introduced as part of the zero-credit CHE210 Essential Skills for Chemists II module that has a focus on professional skills, careers and employability. All 15 posters produced were displayed in the JP building in December 2021 and the winning poster is on permanent display in the building. A subsequent survey of the Y2 students who took part in the group poster competition showed that >80% agreed or strongly agreed that this activity was effective in improving their understanding of the importance of inclusion and diversity in chemistry, the diverse contributions to chemistry and enabled them to find out about a contribution not currently in the chemistry curriculum. Perhaps the most significant result of this survey was that almost 90% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the chemistry curriculum at Queen Mary should include more examples of the contributions to chemistry from underrepresented groups in society.
This project was extended to Y12 schools/colleges in 2022. A total of 21 posters were submitted from 7 different schools/colleges and the short-listed posters were exhibited at the Queen Mary Festival of Communities in June 2022. A S&E Underrepresented Groups in Research UG Internships 2022/23 was awarded to Amina Bellagh (Y2 student) and she is currently editing new resources and we are hoping to produce a booklet on the contributions made by under-represented groups linked to the Chemistry UG syllabus.
My outreach activities enabled my promotion from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer in 2017.
Three articles have been published by the RSC that describe our work and as a result of their contributions to Highlighting Minorities in Chemistry (HMiC), both Israt and Aisha obtained Queen Mary SEED (Student Enhanced Engagement and Development) Awards in 2022.
Queen Mary's Department of Chemistry has been identified by schools and colleges as a centre for developing inclusive curricula and I was invited to contribute to inclusion and diversity inset training days for trainee teachers of the Harris Federation (HF) on 29th September 2021 and 14th September 2022. The latter was also attended by ~50 Early Career Teachers (ECTs) from outside the HF, and a CPD event of the Federation on 11th February 2022. I also provided an inclusion and diversity presentation to teachers at Southwark Schools on Friday 1st July 2022. Thus >200 teachers in primary and secondary education have been given an insight in to the importance of developing inclusive curricula and the responses from them have been very positive.
A paper describing this work has been submitted to the Journal of Chemical Education (American Chemical Society) and has been recommended for acceptance by reviewers, subject to revisions that have been completed and the revised manuscript is with the editor. An oral presentation of this work at the AdvanceHE Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Conference 2023: The Shoulders of Giants: Listening, Learning and Improving our Practice on 15-16 March 2023. A selection of posters are on permanent display in the JP building and when questioned 74% of Y1 students said that these posters inspired them to aim higher.
For academics on Teaching & Scholarship contracts, scholarship is clearly very important for career progression and promotion. Finding a niche that can produce impact is difficult, and you need to be lucky, but once found you should try to develop that area with passion.