Deputy Dean (Undergraduate Studies) Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Reader in Pharmacology Education, Programme Director BSc and Intercalated BSc Pharmacology & Innovative Therapeutics, Director of Education (Undergraduate) William Harvey Research Institute
I have been involved in several scholarship projects at Queen Mary over the years. I led the design and launch of an innovative BSc Pharmacology degree in 2015, which has achieved remarkable success over the years. Under my leadership, the course consistently received the highest National Student Survey (NSS) scores for overall satisfaction among all degrees at Queen Mary for the past five years. In addition, it earned the prestigious rank of number one in the UK for Pharmacology with 100% overall satisfaction. Since then, I have also introduced an intercalated degree in Pharmacology for medical students and a year in industry sandwich degree variant. I am currently in the process of introducing a Digital Learning undergraduate degree from Queen Mary.
The innovative BSc Pharmacology course I designed was the first new Pharmacology degree to be introduced in well over a decade in the UK as well as the first ever BSc undergraduate degree from the William Harvey Research Institute. My aim was to create a course that was innovative, timely and relevant to pharmacology education in the 21st Century. Since 2015 I have developed innovative teaching content and approaches to continually improve and refine the course.
All this was done alongside my research work focussing on elucidating molecular mechanisms of GPCR activation. I have published my research work in high impact journals and presented at national and international conferences. During this time, I won several national and international ‘Outstanding investigator’ awards for my research work as well as the WHRI Excellence in Education Award 2016.
I was a Queen Mary nominee for the 2017 National Teaching Fellowship Award. In 2020 I received the Learning Science Teaching Innovation Award and was acknowledged as a Digital Champion for innovative design of innovative Pharmacology practicals. I was awarded the prestigious Rang Prize by the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) for outstanding contribution to Pharmacology teaching. Furthermore, I was honoured with the Queen Mary President and Principal’s Prize for my outstanding contributions to Pharmacology Education in the UK in 2020.
My growing influence over the national Pharmacology agenda is reflected by my appointment to the Expert Group of BPS for curriculum development in Jan 2016. I was invited to provide advice for revision of the national core undergraduate pharmacology curriculum launched in Jan 2017.
My contributions to this group focussed upon the transformative impact I have personally had upon pharmacology education in the UK through development of an innovative undergraduate programme that meets the highest academic standards, and which addresses a national graduate skills gap. Through my involvement with the BPS UK educators network and the Education and Training committees, I have taken a leading role in various initiatives for the BPS. The culmination of my efforts was acknowledged with a prestigious Fellowship from the BPS.
I was slightly apprehensive when I moved from a research contract to a teaching and scholarship contract shortly after I was promoted to Senior Lecturer because of my heavy involvement in Education. Even then at that time I believed that it would be difficult to reach to the top unless you were on a research contract. However, in recent years, universities have recognised the importance of academics who engage in scholarship and leadership. The promotion documentation for teaching and scholarship academics now is much more transparent. I think it’s important to evaluate scholarship opportunities that come your way and to prioritise your commitments and to take on positions that will facilitate leadership and broader impact.