About me

I am Associate Provost, Teaching and Learning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. My portfolio comprises responsibility for teaching, learning and technology support to faculty and departments creating credit and non-credit learning opportunities in areas of undergraduate, graduate and lifelong learning. I also contribute to new program approval and quality assurance processes overseen by the office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic. I co-teach a large, first year Physics course each year, and have way too much fun doing so.

Between 2012-2018, I was the Academic Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at UBC. Prior to moving to UBC in the Summer of 2012, I held a Chair of Physics Education in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. I was also Dean of Learning and Teaching in the College of Science and Engineering at Edinburgh from 2010-12.

In Edinburgh, the research group in Physics Education Research (PER) that I established continues. Although a well-established research area within the discipline in the US, Australia and elsewhere, there's relatively little PER activity in the UK: here are some more details of the sorts of things that we have done and they continue to do.

A good deal of my recent research interest has centred around the concept of 'students as producers' and use of the PeerWise system in various teaching contexts. There are more details in the links to articles and recent talks, and at the online community of practice site that we have developed PeerWise-Community.org

A focus of my recent work has been conceptualizing the nature of educational leadership within teaching focussed academic roles in HE, and how this articulated and evidenced.