For this year’s UKFIET conference, we are excited to introduce you to a new team of volunteer rapporteurs. Between them, they bring together a rich range of research, policy and communications experience and expertise.

The team will work with the Conference Committee to carry out some of the following tasks:

  • Prepare Twitter and Instagram messages of some of the key points of discussion
  • Take photos and short videos for use on social media
  • Assist at the Photo Booth
  • Assist with registration and microphones in plenary sessions

A photo and short biography for each team member are shown below – please do say hello to them at the conference. And if they ask you for any brief comments or feedback at any time, please do contribute your time generously.

Zoé Allier-Gagneur is originally from France, and has recently completed an MPhil in Education, Globalisation and International Development at the University of Cambridge. Since then, Zoé has been working as a research assistant for the newly created EdTech Hub funded by the World Bank and DFID. Zoé and her team are currently involved in conducting a systematic review of the literature on education technology in low- and middle-income countries. She also has several years of experience in education, including being a teaching assistant in Scotland, working in an International School in Switzerland and training to be a primary school teacher in England. Over the next few months, Zoé hopes to gain experience of education in a Global South context.

Chloë Britt is an Assistant Project Manager and Technical Coordinator at Cambridge Education. Currently, Chloë works predominantly in Pakistan supporting activities relating to teaching and learning. She holds an MA in International Development from the University of Sheffield and conducted her thesis on how education levels influence perceptions of contraception amongst young women in Kampala, Uganda. This complements previous field experience in Malawi and Nepal. Her interests include teacher education, improving educational opportunities for marginalised communities and inclusive technology practices within the classroom.

Sushma Basnet recently completed her PhD from Brunel University London. She is originally from Nepal. Her area of research interest is policy and practice, higher education, immigration, internationalisation and globalisation of education. Sushma achieved her master’s degree from Brunel University in 2009. Additionally, she also holds a second master’s degree in English Language and Literature from North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) Shillong, India and a bachelor’s degree in Arts from St. Mary’s College, Shillong, India.

She began her career as a lecturer in one of the prestigious colleges back home in Nepal. After which she moved to UK and began working as a senior administrator in the Admission department for 6 years in one of the private further education college in London. As a result, of the time she spent there and interacting with the international students, she developed an interest in student services and their role in UK. This motivated her to gain another master’s degree at Brunel and further, she used the knowledge and skills she gained in her PhD degree.

Esi Fenyiwa Amonoo-Kuofi is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Sussex, UK. She has worked in education since 2006. Following 7 years teaching physics and leadership work in secondary schools in the UK, Esi embarked on further studies at King’s College University reading MA Education Management. This led to an opportunity to engage in teacher development through a tenure as Assistant Research Fellow at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana for 4 years. Esi’s research areas include teacher leadership and professional development; teacher education; education management and policy; science education and monitoring the quality and equity of education. Esi is currently engaged in a PhD reading Education with the Centre of International Education at the University of Sussex. Esi’s doctoral research focuses on teacher leadership and professional development in Ghana.

Xaviera Gonzalez-Wegener is a doctoral student at the UCL Institute of Education. Her research interest is inclusive education and Sustainable Development Goal 4. Her PhD is focused on classroom assessment policies and practices that can enable achievement for all learners at different levels of the assessment system. She holds a Master Degree on Assessment in Education from King’s College London, and a BEd Learning Support Practitioner (SENCO) from Universidad Andres Bello in Chile. She has particular interest in developing Knowledge Mobilisation initiatives, as she obtained the UCL Public Engagement annual award to bridge evidence-based practices to effectively teach in mixed-ability group settings within a small professional community in Chile. She has professional experience innovating in further education management and workplace learning in the Chilean productive sector.

Alex Hall-Chen is an Education Analyst at Education Development Trust, with 3 years’ experience in education policy and research. She holds a BA in Politics, Psychology and Sociology from the University of Cambridge and is just about to start an MSc in Comparative and International Education at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include language in education policy and teacher professional development.

 

Jude Hannam is an educator with over twenty years experience teaching in primary, TEFL and informal education settings. She has recently completed a Masters in Globalisation and International Development in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. Her research focused on assessing how successfully, marginalised communities access education in Ghana. Other research interests include gender inequality, citizenship and peace education. She is currently planning a pilot study, Inquiring Science, which is a project at Hughes Hall Cambridge teaching the philosophy of science to primary children to improve their engagement with online sources of information.

Grace Mooring is an Assistant Project Manager with Cambridge Education in the field of international education, currently supporting projects in Sierra Leone, Myanmar and South Sudan. After completing a degree at Sussex University in Geography and Development, she taught English in Japan for a year, and later went on to study for an MPhil in Geographical Research at Cambridge University. Her dissertation focused on participatory methods with young people in rural Kenya and Wellbeing. Grace is interested in inclusive education and the political economies of development projects.

Seema Nath is a third year PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and a member of Hughes Hall. Her research aims to critically examine teaching and learning processes in mainstream schools in India that ‘includes all learners’ and the research is based within municipal corporation schools in Mumbai, India. She holds an MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Her MPhil research explored the links between Autism and Memory. Prior to starting the PhD she was working with the Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York on scaling up innovations in rural primary education in India. She is affiliated to CaNDER Research and the Real Centre at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge. Her research interests include disability and education, inclusive education and international development.’

Lorena Sanchez Tyson is a doctoral candidate in the department of Education, Practice and Society at UCL Institute of Education. Her doctoral research focuses on an indigenous language literacy programme for adults in Mexico, where she aims to explore the meanings, values and uses that literacy has in the lives of learners and facilitators in multilingual contexts. In addition to her doctoral studies, she is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a postgraduate teaching assistant for the BA Education Studies at UCL. She is also the co-editor of a forthcoming special edition journal issue titled ‘New directions in lifelong learning’ for the London Review of Education. She has a professional background in NGO programme management and language teaching, including previous experience at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and the UCL chapter of Engineers Without Borders UK. Lorena holds a BA in English from the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas (Mexico), and a joint MA in Lifelong Learning: Policy and Management from both UCL (UK) and the Universidad de Deusto (Spain).