As part of our Staff Profile series we spoke to Celeste Miles, our newly appointed Education Manager for the Departments of Infectious Disease and Immunology and Inflammation. Here she talks about her career journey and what she is most excited about in the role.
Introduce yourself – who are you and what do you do?
I’m Celeste, I’m the newly appointed Education Manager for DoID, DoII, I’ve worked with these two departments for nearly 10 years first as a Department Administrator then as a Programme Administrator then, Education Co-ordinator, and now as Education Manager. Prior to that I have more than 20 years’ experience in HE admin across a number of universities, including Brunel University, Westminster University and Buckinghamshire New University.
You were recently appointed to this role – what does this mean to you?
Having worked in the education team and with these two departments for a long while I’m really excited for this opportunity and to step up and take the lead of the team and the direction of education for the departments. I’m also happy that I get to continue to work with a lot of great academics and researchers that the departments have.
Having worked up from programme administrator to Education Manager I think I’m in a really good position to see what goes into the operational side of education and the challenges and opportunities of it.
What aspect of your role are you most excited about?
Education has changed a lot over the years and we’re in exciting times. Areas I’m passionate to get involved in is developing new courses and opportunities. It’s a challenging time in education, both for the sector Medicine and for Imperial; I think we need to think outside the box to expand our offerings, to create courses and learning environments that are attractive for students and applicants.
I’m also really keen to give students a real sense of belonging to the our two departments, so that everyone wants to come study at the Department of Immunology & Inflammation and Infectious Disease!
When you are not working, what are your main passions and hobbies?
Outside of work, I love to be in Nature; hiking, paddle boarding and cold-water swimming, particular doing all that in winter (yes, I get called a bit crazy a lot). I definitely prefer colder climates (evening after living in Australia for 3 years).
And finally – one thing you want people to know about you and your role.
I would love people to know I’m open to chatting about all things education and how staff in the department can get involved with it. If any staff or students in the dept have thoughts and views they want to share with me, please do get in touch my door is open.
