Sam Weston

As a strategic leader across several disciplines, Dr Weston's passion for education and empowering people via the medium of learning has been at the forefront of all her positions.
Appointed as Director of Pharmacy at Teesside University, she has responsibility for the development of all aspects of the delivery of undergraduate, postgraduate and CPD pharmacy education. Working within the Senior Executive Management Team of the School of Health and Life Sciences, she is also Chair of the People and Culture Committee, committed to maintaining and improving staff wellbeing activities, the review and reapproval of the School-wide Inter-Professional Learning strategy and the development of an ambitious Learning in Practice educational experience for pharmacy undergraduates.

As Vice Provost of the University of Reading Malaysia branch campus, she was responsible for the development of staff, as well as the accreditation and recognition of programmes for delivery to undergraduates, post-graduates, and other learners.

Having changed career direction during the global pandemic and taken advantage of emerging opportunities to develop transferable skills in a non-educational setting, she was keen to return to the UK and International Higher Education arena.

Having been awarded Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2017 and received promotion to the position of Professor of Pharmacy based on her demonstrated excellence in Teaching & Learning at the University of Reading in 2019, her previous experience as an Admissions Tutor, and then working within the Malaysian Higher Education system gave her a solid grounding within areas of student engagement, access and retention, EDI and student well-being.

Her original training as a pharmacist gave her excellent solution-focused skills, creativity and team building expertise, and previous experience in building and expanding the International Branch Campuses for two highly ranking UK Universities allowed her the opportunity to develop exceptional education solutions, thought leadership, educational content, advise on the development of student-facing infrastructure, and developing international collaborative working practices.

Previous roles, working within the UK charity sector reinforced her grant winning capabilities, as well as allowed an international-level platform to  demonstrate all aspects of cultural awareness dealing with a global network of government and ministry level colleagues.