Teaching and Scholarship

I am the Dean of Undergraduate Studies for the College of Physical Sciences and Engineering, which means I work with the seven schools of the College on matters affecting undergraduate programmes and students. I am a member of the Senior Education Team of the University, I sit on College Board for PSE, and I co-chair the College Education and Student Experience Committee.

My teaching philosophy is very much a continual work in progress because I believe that one of the most important parts of being a professional is a commitment to a continual reflective cycle of improvement. I am always learning more about what I do. Reflecting on that and considering what impact it has on my role as a teacher and what I do in the classroom is one of the key parts of my role.

I had significant input into the project that created the Data Science Academy.

I formed and now run the Computer Science Scholarship group within the School. We meet regularly to discuss educational issues, plan educational research, discuss and create scholarly outputs, and implement knowledge sharing and teaching training within the School. Recently we have begun a set of School wide teaching seminars for the sharing and discussion of teaching experiences.

In the recent past I was the Director of Learning and Teaching in the School. Before that I was Deputy DLT, and spent a lot of time focused on Postgraduate students, working as the chair of the Postgraduate Operations Team, Senior Personal Tutor for Taught Postgraduate students, and the Student Rep Coordinator for the postgrad Student-Staff Panel.

I’m the MSc Programme Leader for the MSc in Computational and Data Journalism, a joint course between the School of Computer Science & Informatics and the School of Journalism, Media and Culture here at Cardiff University, a programme I co-designed.

I have significant experience of programme and module design and development, having been involved in many programme developments and redevelopments, most of which have been through a smooth approval process, and some of which have been commended for their quality by the University’s quality and approval panels.

I am currently an external examiner for Exeter University, for their MSc Computer Science, MSc Computer Science with Business, MSc Data Science, and MSc Data Science with Business.

I am a member of the Governing body of two local primary schools. For one of these Schools I serve as the Curriculum Development Governor, working with pupils and staff on the implementation of the Curriculum for Wales 2022.

Current Teaching

Autumn Semester

My only Autumn semester teaching is now the harmonisation ‘lab’ seminars between JOMEC and COMSC to help students on the CompJ programme make sense of how what they’re learning in both schools ties together.

I was previously part of the teaching team for Fundamentals of Programming (CMT120), primarily teaching front-end web development. This is a core module for MSc Computing, MSc Computing and IT Management and MSc Computational and Data Journalism. I also contribute to Computational Thinking (CMT119) and other modules in our generalist masters programmes.

Before that, I was Module Leader for Web Application Development (CMT112). This module was core for the MSc Computing, MSc Computing and IT Management, and the MSc Computational and Data Journalism programmes, and at times was an optional module for students on the MSc Data Science and Analytics. It has now been subsumed into the larger ‘Fundamentals of Programming’ module.

Spring Semester

I am Module Leader for Data Visualisation (CMT218), a core module for MSc Data Science and Analytics which is also an optional module for several of the other MSc programmes.

I also co-teach the Digital Investigation (MCT542) module on MSc Computational and Data Journalism.

Previously, I also ran the Topics and Research in …(CMT221/CMT222) modules, which are our dissertation preparation modules for the generalist masters programmes.

Past Teaching

Details of my past teaching can be found on the past teaching page