Professor Neil Williams

About

I am currently the Interim Associate Dean (Education) for the Faculty of Health, Science, Social Care and Education. Previously I was interim Associate Dean (Education) (2021-22) and  Director of Undergraduate Studies (2016-2021) in the Faculty of Science Engineering and Computing.  l have a long-standing commitment to supporting the widening participation, retention and the attainment of students from under-represented backgrounds in the chemical sciences and more broadly across STEM. A key recent focus has been in developing socially just and inclusive curricula including decolonisation of the science curriculum. Key achievements have been

  • Improved student outcomes through adoption of student-centread teaching methods such a project based learning and flipped classroom.
  • Supporting STEM academic across the UK in adopting inclusive and socially just curricula.
  • Establishing with other UK colleagues  the National Horizons in STEM Higher Education conference programme to promote SoTL in STEM and help enhance the student experience. 
  • Developing  two major student-staff research partnership schemes a Faculty Summer Undergraduate Research Internship scheme to enhance STEM research skills and a Student Academic Development Research Associate Scheme (SADRAS) focused on pedagogic research.

This work has been recognised by  National Teaching Fellowhip (2023), KU Inclusive curriculum bursary (2021), Learning Science Teaching Innovation award (2020),  Advanced HE Good Practice Grant (2020) and Principal Fellowship of the Education Academy (2018)

I obtained my PhD on surface organometallic chemistry, under the supervision of Professor John Evans from the University of Southampton in 1992.  I subsequently did post-doctoral research in the area of inorganic chemistry and surface chemistry at the National Institute for Materials and Chemical Research, Japan, University of Sussex and the University of East Anglia. After a period at the University of Central Lancashire I joined Kingston University in 1999.

Academic responsibilities

Associate Dean Learning & Teaching

Qualifications

  • 2018 Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • 2001 Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Kingston University
  • 1993 PhD An In Situ Spectroscopic Investigation of Titania-Supported Rhodium and Ruthenium Organometallics, University of Southampton
  • 1989 BSc (Hons) Chemistry, First Class, University of Southampton

Teaching and learning

Research

Professional practice, knowledge exchange and impact

Leadership and management

Social media

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