I'm a practitioner-researcher with a varied set of experience. Before joining the School of Education and English in 2021 I worked in roles across research, teaching, teacher training, management, and assessment, in the UK and China. In assessment I was a designer and developer on the large academic English testing system of UNNC’s Preliminary Year Programme, being fortunate to win the British Council’s annual Innovation in Assessment Prize for work completed in this role. In management I was the first director of the English Language Center at Zhejiang University’s International Campus in Haining, working in partnership with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Edinburgh, a role in which I set up all departmental curricula and systems; and earlier in my career managed a series of private EFL summer schools for Studio Cambridge in the UK. For teacher training I’ve previously taught on two Masters courses for pre-service teachers of English, including the University of Edinburgh’s large MSc TESOL programme, and on various short teacher training courses for in-service teachers. Apart from this I’ve also taught a range of courses in English, education, and social science research methods at other universities in the UK and China, including the University of Warwick, Tsinghua University, and Northeast Normal University.

My BA was in analytic philosophy at the University of Cambridge, mainly focusing on philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. My doctoral degree was the EdD professional doctorate in education studied with the University of Nottingham. The resulting doctoral thesis was a portfolio of articles relating to the evaluation of practicality in educational assessments, and was externally examined by Prof Antony Kunnan. I also hold the Certificate and Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA and DELTA).

Here in the School of Education and English much of my work relates to the MA TESOL. I’m particularly enthusiastic about dissemination and discussion of research between researchers and practitioners; in addition to reviewing for several journals, I’m also an “ambassador” with the US-based non-profit Center for Open Science, as well as a member of the marketing committee for EdArxiv, the largest open online repository of educational research, and enjoy using Twitter to discuss teaching and research. I currently speak Chinese at around intermediate or upper intermediate level, and welcome all opportunities for practice.

Courses on the MA TESOL, MA Applied Linguistics, and EdD programmes, and supervision of EdD and PhD.

Module convenor for Master's courses in Research Methods and in Language Testing and Assessment.

(Please note that I am not currently seeking to take on new PhD students. If you are interested in applying for PhD study at the School of Education and English, please follow the guidance given at the webpage PhD programmes in School of Education and English, particularly the information within "SupervisorList". Enquiries about PhD supervision sent to my email address will in most cases not be answered.)

Currently my main research interests are educational assessment (including language assessment), English for academic purposes, multimedia education and communication, TESOL in the Chinese context, and social science research methodology generally.

ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9703-7410