Fay Yokomizo Akindes produces educator development programs at the University of Wisconsin System. Formerly she taught communication at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside for 20 years. She was a 2005-06 Fulbright Teaching Scholar at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin, West Africa, and taught at Dalkeith House, Midlothian, Scotland in Spring, 2017. Prior to earning her Ph.D. and M.A. Degree at Ohio University, she worked in broadcast promotion and marketing in San Diego (KPBS-FM) and Honolulu (KGMB-TV and KHET/Hawaii Public TV). She was born, raised, and public-schooled on Molokai.
Maha Bali / مها بالي , PhD is an Associate Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo, where she has been a faculty developer since 2003. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Sheffield, UK. She is the co-director of Virtually Connecting and co-founder of Equity Unbound (links below), and is an advisory board member of OneHE and the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange project. She tweets @bali_maha and blogs at https://blog.mahabali.me https://www.virtuallyconnecting.org/ https://unboundeq.creativitycourse.org/
Dr. Bryony Black is Director of Initial Teacher Education at the University of Sheffield. She joined the university in September 2010, having spent the first 12 years of her career teaching mathematics in secondary schools. Bryony completed her Doctorate in May 2020, focusing on the retention of mathematics leaders in secondary schools in England, and has been working on ways to engage with research into Initial Teacher Education since coming to work at the university.
Gareth Bramley is a Senior Tutor at the University of Law, specialising in the teaching of students for legal practice. He was previously employed as a University Teacher at the University of Sheffield for 9 years, and before that was employed as a Commercial Litigation Solicitor in an International law firm. Gareth is currently undertaking doctoral studies in Education at the University of Sheffield, having previously been awarded with the PGCert in Learning and Teaching and gaining Senior Fellow status with AdvanceHE (formerly the HEA) in 2015. Gareth is currently focusing his pedagogical research on philosophy and education, and is passionate about emotional engagement in learning and teaching.
Anne Butterworth is a senior lecturer in advanced clinical practice (part-time) and a PhD researcher (part-time), funded through the ESRC Grand Union DTP health and wellbeing pathway. Anne is a registered nurse (adult) with a background in community nursing and higher education. Her clinical roles have included working across different regions of England as a district nurse, and in specialist palliative care as a community Macmillan nurse, having qualified as a non-medical prescriber in 2009. She still practices as an RCN accredited Advanced Level Nurse Practitioner in Out-of-Hours/Urgent Care, but also took pandemic public commitments leave in 2020 to work back in the NHS (and is currently helping with the Covid19 vaccination programme).
Anne’s PhD study builds on work completed in her Master’s degree in applied social research at Manchester University, and it explores the nature of psychological support as part of district nurse provision of palliative care for patients and their families. Through a practitioner-ethnographer approach, informed through engagement with patients, families and practitioners, unique methods will be used to observe care in context and increase understanding of these less visible aspects of care delivered at home. Anne’s research interests include palliative and end of life care; community nursing; advanced clinical practice and video-reflexive ethnography.
Dr. Sara Clayson is a Staff Tutor in the School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sports at the Open University. Sara’s teaching career started in the Primary School classroom before moving into Adult Education and Further Education, where she taught literacy skills to long-term unemployed adults aiming to return to work. Her career in Higher Education started when she became an Associate Lecturer in the Arts and Humanities with the Open University. She maintains an Associate Lecturer post as well as her current role as Staff Tutor in Childhood and Youth Studies, teaching a multidisciplinary Arts module and an introduction to Childhood Studies and Child Psychology module. Sara has Masters degrees from the Open University in English Literature and in Education, a PhD in English Literature from the University of Birmingham and has published on images of androgyny in Victorian popular fiction. Her current research interests on young people’s fanfiction writing draws on both English Literature and Childhood and Youth Studies. Her professional interests focus on teacher identity in Higher Education and the use of personal narratives in reflective practice.
Dr. Teresa Cremin is Professor of Education (Literacy) at The Open University. An ex-teacher and ITE tutor, Teresa now undertakes research and consultancy in the UK and abroad. Her socio-cultural research focuses mainly on volitional reading and writing, teachers’ literate identities and practices and creative pedagogies. Her recent books include Children Reading for Pleasure in the Digital Age (with N. Kucirkova, Sage, 2019), Writer Identity and the Teaching and Learning of Writing; Storytelling in Early Childhood: Enriching Language, Literacy and Culture, (Routledge, 2017, edited collections). A Fellow of the English Association, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Royal Society of the Arts, Teresa is a currently a Trustee of the UK Literacy Association and chair of DfE Reading for pleasure sub-committee. Teresa is passionate about developing readers for life and leads a professional user-community website and wider movement to support the development of children’s and teachers’ reading for pleasure https://researchrichpedagogies.org/research/reading-for-pleasure.
Arley Cruthers, MFA is a Paralympic medalist, novelist, and writing instructor. As a member of the Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball national team, she won two World Championship gold medals and a bronze at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games. Her first novel, Post, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in the Best First Novel category and her second novel, The Time We All Went Marching, was named to the Globe and Mail’s Best 100 Books of 2011 list. She teaches Applied Communications at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where she also currently serves as the Open Education Teaching Fellow. She’s also the author of the OER textbook Business Writing For Everyone: An Inclusive Guide To Writing in the Workplace. Arley is passionate about open education, open pedagogy, ungrading, Universal Design for Learning and disability justice. She holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Justin Dunne is a Staff Tutor at the Open University in the School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care. Having found his own teenage years somewhat challenging, Justin spent the first half of his career working in youth, community and care settings eventually specialising in treatment for young people with substance misuse problems. His academic career has seen him lead on several health and social care programmes and develop research interests in evidence-based practice with vulnerable young people. This research culminated in a PhD in 2017. Justin has a passion for developing highly reflective health and social care practitioners who are equipped to support the most vulnerable in society.
Tanya Elias is a long-time distance education student who currently lives with her three teenagers in Vancouver, BC. She spends her days working as an occupational training manager for a private company. In her spare time, she continues to study and ask critical questions related to open, distance and digital education. One day, she hopes to be able to go for coffee with another adult. In the meantime, she is researching the implications of scale within the field of open education as an EdD Candidate at the University of Calgary from the comfort of her bedroom office and kitchen table.
Louise Glover is Director of Civic Engagement for the School of Law, having joined the University of Sheffield in September 2010. She convenes Property Law (Land Law and Equity and Trust Law) and a project module titled ‘A Practical Perspective on Commercial Property Development’. She directs the Commercial Law student pro bono clinic at University of Sheffield and leads the School’s employability provision. She has recently co-authored an article on clinical legal education published in the European Legal Education Journal. Prior to joining the Law School, Louise trained and worked as a solicitor in the City of London, before becoming partner at a law firm in the south of England. She has also acted as a consultant for the London Real Estate group of an international commercial law firm. Louise is currently collaborating on the second edition of a Land Law textbook.
Dr. Kathleen Harris is Dean of the School of Education and Applied Social Sciences, Associate Professor, at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. She teaches early childhood and special education. Kathleen received her doctoral degree in Special Education and master’s degree in Early Childhood Education at Kent State University and her undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Education and Psychology at Notre Dame College of Ohio. Kathleen’s research interests include: children’s spirituality, peer interventions, strengths-based leadership, and contemplative practices for young children. Kathleen has taught toddlers to pre-kindergarten, directed early childhood programs, and does professional development trainings for early childhood professionals and families. Kathleen served on the board for Pi Lambda Theta Honor Society, the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children (PAEYC), and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Kathleen has published articles in Young Children, Young Exceptional Children, Childhood Education, International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, International Journal of Early Years, International Journal of Holistic Early Learning and Development, Journal of Integrative Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine, Association of Child Life Professionals Bulletin, and Early Childhood Education Journal. She serves on the Parent Council Policy Board for Seton Hill Child Services Head Start in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality and is a Consulting Editor for Young Children and Co-Facilitator for Young Children’s Spirituality Interest Forum.
Dr. Keith Heggart is an early career researcher with a focus on learning and instructional design, educational technology and civics and citizenship education. He is currently exploring the way that online learning platforms can assist in the formation of active citizenship amongst Australian youth social movements. Keith is a former high school teacher, having worked as a school leader in Australia and overseas, in government and non-government sectors. In addition, he has worked as an Organiser for the Independent Education Union of Australia, and as an independent Learning Designer for a range of organisations.
Karen Littleton (editor) is a coach, poet and Professor of Education at the Open University, UK. She is currently responsible for academic capacity-building within the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies. Karen has research expertise in the psychology of education and collaborative creativity. She has held Professorships in the Psychology of Education at The Open University, UK and at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has also worked as a visiting professor at the University of Helsinki, Finland and Coventry University, UK and held visiting scholarships at: UNAM, Mexico; University of Oulu, Finland; University of Tampere, Finland and the University of Cambridge, UK. Karen is a member of the ‘Hornet Press Poetry Collective’ and reads her poems at venues in London and across the South East of England. A former writer-in-residence, at Westbury Arts Centre, she founded the community-based ‘Poetry Café’ and ‘Time to Write’ – where writers gather to share, develop their craft and, crucially, write.
Dr. Jeanette Maritz is a Professor in the Department of Health Studies at the University of South Africa (Unisa). She is also a Professor Extraordinary at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Jeanette is a C rated established researcher and a nurse by profession. Her research interests include qualitative research, coaching, mentoring, postgraduate supervision and identity. Jeanette explores scholarship and professional development from the margins for both faculty and students through different lenses and geographical contexts. Her collaboration with Paul Prinsloo (Unisa) focusses on faculty identity and politics though a Bourdieusian lens. Their more recent exploration includes new materialism allowing for different ontological questions in mapping the diversities of being faculty.
Sean Michael Morris (editor) is Senior Instructor of Learning Design and Technology in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado Denver. He is the Director of Digital Pedagogy Lab, an international professional development gathering for educators committed to issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, critical digital pedagogy, and imagining a new future for education. Sean also serves as the Director of Educational Partnerships for Hybrid Pedagogy, the journal of critical digital pedagogy. He co-authored An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy, and co-edited Critical Digital Pedagogy: A Collection as well as the forthcoming The Critical Instructional Design Reader. Sean has contributed to Disrupting Digital Humanities, Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities; MOOCs and their Afterlives: Experiments in Scale and Access in Higher Education; Applied Pedagogies: Strategies for Online Writing Instruction; and Critical Examinations of Distance Education Transformation Across Disciplines.
Dr. Ed Nagelhout is a Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received his PhD from Purdue University in 1996. He has co-edited three collections, published more than thirty peer-reviewed articles or book chapters, along with two open-access electronic textbooks, and presented more than one hundred papers on a variety of topics at a wide range of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary venues. His research focuses on writing program administration, teaching in digital environments, digital composing, writing in the disciplines, and open-access literacy and learning. Recent publications include “Game design as literacy-first activity: Digital tools with/in literacy instruction” with Fawn Canady for the collection, Handbook of Research on Integrating Digital Technology with Literacy Pedagogies; “Linguistic and rhetorical analysis in interdisciplinary health information research” with Barbara St. Pierre Schneider for the Sage Research Methods Cases: Medicine and Health; and “To work: Naming, acting on, and modifying in the college literacy ‘classroom’” for the Journal of College Literacy and Learning. He plans to play for an over-65 softball travel team when he retires.
Zoe Ollerenshaw, MEd is a former senior lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Sheffield. Zoe worked in practice for 15 years before joining the School of Law, and was recognised by Chambers and Partners’ UK Practice Guide as a leader in her field. In 2000 Zoe joined the School of Law, initially to teach upon the Legal Practice Course, but in 2008 moved to lecture on its academic programmes and worked in a number of senior roles in the department to advance student academic development, student welfare, and teaching quality. She successfully completed her MEd in 2013 with her dissertation focussing on student perceptions of effective feedback. Zoe is passionate about the learning, development and support of students academically and for their well being. She was recognised for her enduring commitment to the diverse needs and interests of students successfully serving as the inaugural Faculty of Social Sciences’ Faculty Learning and Teaching Director of Widening Participation, and altering or influencing Faculty and University policies in this area. In 2018 Zoe was awarded a University Senate award for Sustained Teaching Excellence. She has contributed to the development of teaching and learning policy, methods and practices and debate locally, nationally and internationally through various conference presentations.
John Parry is a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood at The Open University, UK. His research interests focus on inclusion, disabled children’s experiences of learning situations particularly in early years and primary settings, the development of friendships and early intervention. He has led and co-led several research projects in these areas and has published subsequent papers in the Journal of Early Childhood Research, Early Years: International Research Journal, International Journal of Early Years Education and British Journal of Educational Studies. He is also co-author of the book Special Needs in the Early Years with Sue Roffey and has co-edited four different collections exploring Early Childhood and Inclusion issues for The Open University Press. His most recent work has been with Professor Jonathon Rix developing ‘In the Picture’, an approach to observing young children at play and engaging with their perspectives. Before moving into Higher Education in 2010, John had been a practitioner in the early childhood sector for over 25 years, firstly as a teacher and then as a co-ordinator of educational support services for pre-school children.
Laurence Pattacini is a University Teacher in the department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield. She qualified as an architect in Versailles and completed her Master in Urban Design at Oxford Brookes University. She practiced as a designer before joining Higher Education. She has worked in several European countries and has extensive experience in landscape architecture practice. She has been teaching for over twenty years and is now a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has also been involved in several fixed term academic research projects in the UK related to the built environment and the sustainability agenda. She only recently started to engage with pedagogic research. She is particularly interested in issues related to students’ engagement and links between studies and practice.
Kate Campbell Pilling qualified as a solicitor in 1999 specialising in commercial property. She joined the School of Law at the University of Sheffield in 2004 where she taught and convened various modules including Property Law, Land Law, Commercial Property Law and legal skills modules in the Centre for Professional Legal Education. She was also Programme Director for the Graduate Diploma in Law. Kate embeds her innovative teaching methods and practices into these modules and has extensive experience in the use of audio feedback and preparing students for assessment having been Director of Assessments for the School and an external examiner and moderator. In 2020 Kate moved roles within the School to teach Land and Equity modules on the LLB and MA Programmes. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a co-author of a textbook on Land Law, currently collaborating on the second edition..
Dr. Paul Prinsloo is a Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in the Department of Business Management, College of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa (Unisa). He is a Visiting Professor at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany, a Research Associate for Contact North I Contact Nord (Canada) and a Fellow of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) and serves on several editorial boards. In the South African context. Paul has a B3 research rating confirming his considerable international reputation for the high quality and impact of his research outputs. His academic background includes fields as diverse as theology, art history, business management, online learning, and religious studies. Paul is an internationally recognised speaker, scholar and researcher and has published numerous articles in the fields of teaching and learning, student success in distance education contexts, the ethical collection, analysis and use of student data in learning analytics, and (digital) identities. In his collaborative research with Jeanette Maritz (Unisa) on faculty identity in higher education they extensively used and applied Bourdieusian theory and more recently, new materialism in mapping the multiplicities of being and becoming faculty.
Dr. Lucy Rai (editor) qualified and began her career as a child protection social worker in Bristol, UK. She began teaching social work in higher education in 1995, initially in a Further Education College (FE) and since 2001 with the Open University. A common thread across her teaching and scholarship has been on supporting non traditional students to progress in their careers through higher education. Both in FE and in at the Open University, many students come to study with patchy or distant educational preparation, but a wealth of personal and employment based experience. Lucy has retained her close connections between practice, education and scholarship with her research and publications have primarily focused on academic and professional writing in in social work, with a particular interest in reflective writing, identity and emotion. Lucy was the founding director of PRAXIS, the scholarship and innovation centre for the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies at The Open University. PRAXIS has worked closely with the Digital Pedagogy Lab to raise the profile of critical digital pedagogy in the Open University UK. Lucy’s current teaching and scholarship focuses on innovating digital pedagogies to support the learning of foundation level learning in health and social care. She also still publishes and supports learning in practice relating to social work writing.
Chloe de los Reyes was born in the Philippines but moved to the United States three months shy of her 13th birthday. Even though she originally wanted to earn a degree in the food industry or related field, she found herself taking more and more English classes during her time at CSUSB. When she received her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature, she applied and was accepted to the M.A. in English Composition program at the same university. The program and her work as a writing tutor and an international exchange tutor in Germany allowed her to talk about, as well as piece together, all of the things she was interested in about writing as well as her personal experiences as a multilingual. Upon receiving her M.A., she continued to teach as an adjunct in several departments at CSUSB: in the English Department’s First-Year Writing Program, the International Extension Programs, and the Educational Opportunity Program. She also briefly taught at University of La Verne’s writing program. All of these sites have allowed her to work with students who have similar backgrounds to hers. In Fall 2019, Chloe de los started a full-time, tenure-track position at Crafton Hills College, where she mostly teaches composition. Much of her work currently is focused on initiatives centered on equity and diversity. Her scholarly interests include academic status, collaboration, multilingual writing, and the intersections of language, identity, and culture.
Sean Robinson, MFA is an educator from the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study from Plymouth State University in Educational Leadership His academic work has been presented at Dartmouth College, UC Berkeley, and at conferences abroad, focusing on the representation of minorities in popular fiction. His research interests also include the idea of place in writing and pedagogy, which has led him on research trips with the support of Plymouth State University, the University of Washington, and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation to the American Pacific Northwest, Ireland, and Italy.
Joe Stommel has been a mental health professional and instructor since 1974 and was Colorado Department of Corrections Administrator of Alcohol and Drug Services from 1990-2008. He has done extensive training and authored numerous publications. He retired in 2008 and is now a consultant and online college instructor.
Neil Summers is a staff tutor in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) and has 40 years of experience as a practitioner lecturer and researcher. Neil started his career as nurse practitioner and then moved into Nurse Education. He initially worked at the Bath & Swindon College of Health studies and the University of the West of England where he worked as a Senior Lecture and Associate Head of School. He has research and practice interests in supporting people that live with various conditions including mental health and learning disabilities. He has experience of teaching and facilitating mixed groups of professionals, students, carers and users of services.
Neil is also a practising counsellor and offers support to young people, adults and families. He offers different types support, to help people explore greater independence, aiming to help people better cope with current and future issues they may experience.
Joan Upson, MEd is a Senior University Teacher in the School of Law at the University of Sheffield. She is Director of Professional Development (Teaching) and Director of the LLB Programme in the School of Law, as well as being the module convenor for a number of subjects across the Law programmes. During her career she has gained experience at a number of institutions where her work was focused on European and Environmental law, before coming to Sheffield some 15 years ago. At Sheffield her work has been more civil law based and outside of the law, focused upon staff and student development. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and recently completed the MEd at Sheffield. Her continuing interest in pedagogic research and the student base in particular have led her to embark upon a doctoral programme in education at Sheffield and her work in these areas has led her to present at a number of local, national and international conferences.
Susannah Wilson started her career teaching English at secondary level. She then moved to the further education (FE) sector, where her love of post-it notes and use of sock puppets in the classroom – unremarked upon at secondary level – bewildered and bemused her new students. She is an experienced teacher in both face-to-face and online learning contexts, and has become increasing interested in the ways that technology can be used to enhance dialogue within an online learning context. Her research interests include assessment and feedback literacy. She is increasingly passionate about the role of FE education generally, and the role of technologies in online and blended learning contexts.
Dr. Jim Wolper has AB (Harvard, 1976) and PhD (Brown, 1982) degrees in Mathematics (Algebraic Geometry). He became a flight instructor in 1995, and has since worked part- time as a professional pilot, flying the Beech King Air, a 9-seat turboprop. In addition to many research papers, he wrote Understanding Mathematics for Aircraft Navigation (McGraw–Hiill, 2001). His current research focus areas are the foundations of Mathematics and Mathematical writing.
Dr. Sarah Yardley is a Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer, Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, University College London and THIS Institute Post-doctoral Fellow.
As a clinical academic, Sarah is interested in how patients, families, carers, and healthcare professionals do the work of frontline day-to-day healthcare and make sense of their experiences; hospital-community and specialist-generalist interfaces in care; and patient transitions between hospital and community care, including care in Emergency Departments and Acute Medical Units. Sarah’s research expertise is in qualitative methodologies, applied to health professions education, palliative care, psychiatry and patient safety through study of sociocultural influences, informal learning and ‘real world’ practices. Her research seeks to understand and improve human-dependent healthcare such as the impact therapeutic and professional collegiate relationships have on current and future care. Sarah is an innovative methodologist whose PhD received the ASME New Researcher Award (2010). She is also on the Editorial Board for the journal Palliative Medicine and works clinically in a large palliative care service (hospital and community).
Dr. Xia Zhu is a Lecturer in Marketing at the Open University, UK. Previously, she worked at Keele University and Sheffield Hallam University. Xia obtained her MSc in Marketing from UMIST, and her PhD in Marketing from University of Manchester. Her subject-based research focuses on services marketing and business-to-business marketing. She has been awarded by British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant to examine social media engagement during museum visits. She has a number of publications and is a peer reviewer for a number of academic journals and funding bodies.
Xia has gained experience of teaching marketing across undergraduate and postgraduate levels at various universities. She has served as External Examiner in the wider academic community. Her externally focused work also includes working with the Open University’s Validation Partnership Team and acting as Academic Reviewer for the university’s national and international partner institutions. Xia is interested in exploring online distance learning, student experience, academic professional development, and higher education internationalisation. She has been working with academics internationally on different projects. Before her academic career, she worked as a business development manager in a British company expanding its business in the Far East. Xia is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
