I am currently Head of Pharmaceutics at Teesside University (since January 2024) where alongside the Director of Pharmacy I play a significant role in the development and establishment of the School of Pharmacy via the development of innovative curricula for the MPharm (Pharmacy@TU) programme, in line with the new Standards of Education as set by the General Pharmaceutical Council. I'm also contributing to the assembly of a team of expert, research-led educators, focused on delivering skilled, resilient graduates, ready to deliver impact across the Tees Valley and beyond.

I have a First-Class Honours BSc in Pharmacy (1999), a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry (2004) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2008). I am a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, registered with the GPhC, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). I acted as elected Member at the Council of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists (SCS) in the UK for three years (2019-2022), and I was an invited member at the Education Committee and the Scientific Programme Committee of the SCS.

Teaching and Learning innovations

Before my current role, I was at the University of Sunderland for 20 years (2004-2024) where on my own initiative based on market/industrial demand I designed and established two new innovative, industry-driven, and hugely profitable courses; the BSc Cosmetic Science (2016) and the MSc Cosmetic Science (2020) from validation, curriculum design, to programme leadership, marketing, and admissions. I also designed and ran as module leader most of the modules on those 2 courses before then delegating them to colleagues.

• The external income from student tuition fees on the Cosmetic Science courses I designed/established has been over £7 million since 2016.

Between 2004 to 2013, I designed and led pharmaceutics and pharmacy practice modules on the MPHARM, the MSc Clinical Pharmacy and MSc Medicines Management courses at the University of Sunderland.

Research and Enterprise 

Alongside my teaching I developed and established my research in the following fields:

Pharmaceutical dosage form design and quality control
This is on the design and quality control of transdermal dosage forms including the rheological properties of pressure-sensitive adhesives as quality control indicator of the adhesive performance of skin patches; the design of novel  hydrogels, the stabilisation of drugs via amorphous solid dispersions. (6 completed PhD students as their Director of Studies).

I have a patent on transdermal drug delivery https://patents.google.com/patent/EP4051247B1/en

Design and quality control of cosmetic products 
This is on the design and quality control of cosmetic formulations eg development of predictive tools for the correlation of product sensory descriptors with quantifiable rheological parameters; metabolism of ingredients in the skin. See my Special Issue in the Cosmetics journal.

(3 completed PhD students as their Director of Studies, and 1 completed KTP research associate as Lead Investigator)

Over the years, I have secured external funding for my research, as Principal Investigator, from:

• Pharmaceutical industry (fully-funded PhD studentships; 2005- 2018)  £198,500
• Innovate UK, KTP in collaboration with Fontus Health (2018 – 2021; KTP: 11098)  £114,661
• I have also been Director of self-funded PhD students who approached me over the years; total income from their tuition fees. ~ £265,000

EXTERNAL ASSESSOR TO UNIVERSITY COURSES

• I was invited by the Hellenic Quality Assurance & Accreditation Agency (HQA) for the Accreditation of the Higher Education Institutionsof Greece to act as External Evaluation Committee (EEC) Member for the:
  • Department of Aesthetics & Cosmetology of the Technological Educational Institute (T.E.I.) of Athens, Greece (28 April – 3 May 2014), and
  • Department of Aesthetics & Cosmetology of the Alexander Technological Educational Institute (A.T.E.I.) of Thessaloniki, Greece (23 - 28 June 2014).
• I was invited by the Cyprus Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education to act as the Chair of the External Evaluation Committee (EEC) for the KES College Nicosia, CDA College Limassol & Intercollege Nicosia in Cyprus (13^th-20^th January 2019).
• I am currently External Examiner for the MSc Pharmaceutical Sciences at Robert Gordon University, Scotland (2019 – ongoing).

EXTERNAL EXAMINER for PhD candidates

• I have been External Examiner of PhD students invited by their Directors of Studies (DoS) at the following Universities in the UK:
  • Imperial College London, Dept. of Chemical Engineering  (April 2010)
  • Reading School of Pharmacy (November 2014)
  • London School of Pharmacy (April 2015)
  • School of Pharmacy, University College London (November 2016)
  • King's College London, Institute of Pharmaceutical Science  (November 2018)
  • Reading School of Pharmacy (November 2020)
  • London University South Bank (July 2023)
  • London School of Pharmacy (tbc; tentative for July 2024)
• External examiner for an MRes candidate in the UK
  • Robert Gordon University (February 2015)
  • Robert Gordon University (May 2016) (re-examination)

GRANT REVIEWS

• I was a named reviewer for Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship (2015)
• I was anonymous reviewer for:
  • EPSRC standard applications (2016, 2017)
  • BBSRC standard application (2018)
  • MRC grants (2018, 2020)
• I have been Member of the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLF) programme Peer Review College (PRC) (since 2018)
  • I reviewed grant proposal MR/T022671/1 on September 2019, UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF)

MEDIA APPEARANCES

• BBC 1, I designed and conducted a 5-week user-trial on cellulite interventions for the “The truth about looking good” programme, where I also appeared as the scientific presenter of the study’s results. Broadcasted in January and August 2018: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6djvbm.This study attracted further media attention:
  • https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/beauty/skincare/body-brushing-cellulite-607725
  • https://www.greenpeople.co.uk/beauty-hub/blog/benefits-of-body-brushing
  • https://www.voya.ie/en/gb/Dry-Body-Brushing-The-Benefits-for-your-skin-and-health/cc-117.aspx
• Interview with BBC Radio Newcastle about the findings of the cellulite intervention study with BBC 1. January 2018: https://youtu.be/JLPdgZxcDxI
• BBC 1, appearance as scientific expert on the safety of cosmetic ingredients in everyday products in “Health: Truth or scare”. Broadcasted in April 2018: https://youtu.be/lqEwFvrbJ8A
• Channel 4, I was scientific advisor for the “Super-shoppers” episode on the science behind “micellar water” products. Broadcasted in July