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.
Applications for 2025/26 have now closed.
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 agreed period. This will be considered based on outcomes.
- You will be eligible to join the QMA Fellows Alumni community.
“The Queen Mary Academy Fellowship has been a truly transformative experience, deepening my understanding of curriculum design, academic leadership, and scholarship. I am thankful for the invaluable opportunities I have had to collaborate across disciplines, broaden my professional network, and enhance my approach to education and leadership. This experience has been both rewarding and inspiring, and I look forward to the lasting impact this new curriculum will have on our students and the future of dental education".— Dr Radhika Desai, Institute of Dentistry
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.
“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
Current Fellows
Paraskevi Argyriou, October 2024 - September 2025 
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 - June 2026 
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 Jo Elliott, September 2024 - September 2025
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
Dr Tim Edkins, February 2025 - July 2025
Excellence in Education - Focus: Curriculum Development
The aim of Tim’s project is to investigate what undergraduates in Political International Relations find meaningful, in term of academic skills and discipline knowledge and consider what, if any, effect this has on employability.
Professor Elizabeth Gillow, September 2024 - August 2025
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.
Dr Lisa Morrison, September 2024 - September 2025 
Excellence in Education - Focus: Employability and Graduate Attributes
The Employability Curriculum project seeks to provide a consistent approach to employability in the curriculum.
Dr Gwijde Maegherman, January 2025 - June 2027 
Excellence in Education - Focus: Assessment and Technology in Teaching.
This project focuses on how we can improve students' and educators' experiences of assessment, with an emphasis on peer assessment
Dr Usman Naeem, May 2024 - May 2026 
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 - September 2025
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 
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.
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 
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.
Dr Radhika Desai, April 2024 - April 2025 
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.
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 
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 
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 
Excellence in Education - Focus: Curriculum Development
Nicola will be working on a comprehensive review of the LLB curriculum.
Professor Gerard Hanlon January 2023 - December 2024 
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 Nick Hostettler, September 2021 - August 2023 
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 
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 
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 
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 
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 
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 
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 
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 
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.
Professor Louise Younie April 2024 - March 2025 
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.
Dr Xue Zhou September 2023 - August 2024 
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.
