Meet the Academics

Dr Kevin Proudfoot

Lecturer and Programme Lead of the online MSc Education

Dr Proudfoot specialises in the areas of sociology of education, educational policy and research methodology. His research interests include exploring the consequences of New Public Management in education, as well as investigating teachers’ perspectives on their sense of agency and autonomy, alongside other interests in methodological areas including how to conduct mixed methods research effectively and the use of critical realism as a paradigmatic stance.

Susie Marshall

Lecturer on the Online Education programme

Susie Marshall has a professional background in primary education. She was Deputy Head of a school in London for eight years and more recently has worked as a lecturer in mathematics education, associate tutor in inclusive education, as well as a mathematics consultant with schools across Scotland. Her previous research includes focussing on teachers’ perceptions of developing mathematical language.

Professor Jason Arday

Professor of Sociology of Education (School of Education)

Professor Jaoson is a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust, the UK's leading race equality thinktank and the British Sociological Association (BSA). His research focuses on race inequalities within the education sector with a specific focus racial and intersectional inequality in higher education. Areas of his work have also focused on mental health in education, cultural studies, race and politics, education policy and decolonising the curriculum.

Dr Utkun Aydin

Lecturer in Initial Teacher Education – Mathematics Education (School of Education)

Dr Utkun was born to a family of teachers. Utkun received her associate professorship degree at the Head of Interuniversity Council, Ankara, Turkey in 2019. Her research interests are mathematical thinking, knowledge of geometry, test development and adaptation, metacognition and test anxiety. She has a particular interest in structural equation modeling and multilevel modeling. Utkun is currently working as a data analysis advisor in a research project on the effect of math anxiety on middle school students’ problem-solving skills using behavioral and neuroscientific (optical brain imaging) methods.

Dr Thomas Cowhitt

Lecturer in Educational Change and Collaborative Improvement (School of Education)

At the University of Glasgow , Dr Thomas is a part of the Education Leadership and Policy (ELP) , Research and Teaching Group (RTG). He is a co-developer for a new elective called Educational Change for Collaborative Improvement that will first run in the Spring of 2023 as an elective for the Education, Public Policy & Equity MSc programme. His research focuses on practitioner-led school improvement. He is primarily interested in exploring how practitioners engage with regional and national educational systems and their methods for scaling up their own school improvement initiatives beyond their own schools.

Mr David Watt

Associate Tutor (School of Education)

Dr David in his career worked as a consultant for Scottish Government and drafted the new code of practice for additional support. Before then he was Senior Education Officer for Inclusion and Equalities in Education Scotland. For several years, he was Scotland's Representative Board member for the European Agency. He enjoyed teaching (and learning) as tutoring, lecturing and course leader across several courses in recent years. He is fond of football in all its forms, reading and, normally, travelling and going to the theatre and the cinema.

Dr Leyla De Amicis

Associate Tutor (Creativity Culture & Faith)

Dr Leyla worked as researcher on various national and international projects at different Universities (most recently at GCU, UWS and University of Edinburgh) on topics as prejudice-based bullying, children's and parents' perceptions of child chronic pain and perceptions of health services in people with disabilities and their families/careers. She also worked and volunteered for many non-profit organisations for children and people with disabilities, in different countries (Italy, UK, Bosnia, Nepal and Costa Rica). She is an Associate Tutor at the University of Glasgow since 2018, supervising MSc students with their dissertations, leading seminars on different areas of Psychology.

Dr Tanya Wisely

Associate Tutor (School of Education)