Tell us a bit about your background
I grew up on the Wirral, up in the Northwest of England. There, I was lucky enough to have the chance to study Chinese at high school and this sparked a life-long fascination with China. I went to the University of Sheffield, where I studied Chinese Studies with a year abroad at Nanjing University, and graduated as one of only 100 students in the UK with a Chinese degree that year. I then went out to China and worked organising student cultural exchange and work placement programmes in the seaside city of Qingdao (home of Tsingtao beer!). I loved that job, particularly enjoying helping undergraduates learn more about China through work with Chinese people. I’m a strong believer in the power of mutual understanding through direct interaction. I came home just before COVID (lucky timing ey!) and worked at London Business School coordinating business school experiential learning courses, where students took part in term-long placement projects with real clients. I then spent time in the software industry as an Implementation Specialist, which is a project management role helping new customers understand and set up their newly purchased software. I moved to Brighton in 2024 and in 2025 I came back to higher education at BSMS. On reflection, the thread that runs through my background is that I really enjoy helping people to learn the skills they need, whether that be at medical school, in international higher education or in the software industry.
What’s your role like day-to-day?
The day-to-day of my role sees me focusing on making sure teaching activity goes smoothly to help students progress through courses. It is a varied role, changing continually through the academic year. I’m lucky enough to work with a wide range of people – students, academics, professional services staff, external contributors. I’ll be in emails speaking to all the contributors, in teaching rooms helping with the IT set up, and online making sure all the relevant documents are up to date.