Dr Sophie Rutschmann shares the latest updates and news from the Department of Immunology & Inflammation’s Education team.
New starter
We are welcoming Maggie Trela as our new Teaching Fellow on the MSc Immunology course. Maggie graduated from Queen Mary University of London with an MSc in Medical Forensic Sciences in 2010, before undertaking a PhD and postdoctoral research at the University of Wolverhampton. There, she worked with Professor Paul Nelson, investigating the role of Human Endogenous Retroviruses in rheumatoid arthritis. Before joining us, she was a visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University and Wolverhampton University, where she also obtained her teaching qualifications. She looks forward to getting involved in the vibrant teaching community at Imperial College London, and contributing to the students’ learning experience by demystifying the field of immunology.
Leadership and support changes
Professor Steve Ley will be our new BSc Immunity and Infection Course lead as of January 2020 when Fiona Culley will be stepping down from the role. We’d like to say a big thank you to Fiona for leading the course in times of Curriculum Review, and all the best to Steve in his new role. Steve will be working with Celeste Miles who is our new BSc I&I and BSc Haematology administrator. Thank you to Olive Thomas and Andrew Wright for their help over the past years and all the best to Celeste!
Dr Tom McKinnon has been appointed MSc Molecular Medicine Co-Director where he will be working with Dr Paras Anand to deliver this very popular and successful programme.
New tools
The MSc Immunology course has been piloting a few things lately as part of implementing the changes from its curriculum review. We’d like to mention Peergrade, an online allocation system which allows formative peer feedback and self-evaluation. With this tool, which we will evaluate with our students, we are hoping that they will engage with our marking criteria and develop their sense of self-reflection when preparing scientific artefacts such as poster, research proposal, or conference proceedings.
We would also like to mention Pavel and Margarita who have used our reading list tool to get students to read reviews prior to their lectures or even to get the students to prepare, in groups, slides for the lecture. By doing so, we are aiming to increase the students’ prior knowledge of the topic so that discussions during the class can be more informed and therefore more interesting and more fun! The reading lists can also be used to complement the lecture, as Avinash has done.
Please do contact us if you’d like any information on any of these points, or to send us any review or article you would like to students to have access to through the reading list.
Reminder: PhD contacts
For all PhD supervisors, the key names for PhD students’ milestones and support are:
Director of Postgraduate Studies (Research): Professor Kevin Murphy
Research Degrees Manager: Hayley Kendall-Berry
Research Degrees Administrator: Dawn Al-Ardhromli
Senior Tutor for Pastoral Care: Dr Toby Andrew
Deputy DPS and Section Rep for Haematology: Dr Andy Porter
Section Rep for CMII and CID: Professor Danny Altmann.
Please do not hesitate to contact them should you or your student need support.