Dato’ Kathleen Chew
Dato’ Kathleen Chew is the Group Legal Counsel of the YTL Group, and Programme Director of the YTL Foundation, a foundation working to provide equitable access to quality education and development of capable values driven leaders. She was Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum on ASEAN 2016 and a Local Ambassador for the British Council’s Study UK Alumni Awards 2018. She sits on the boards of various Malaysian and UK charities, the Asia Philanthropy Circle in Singapore and Acumen Fund, Inc, New York. She is also Chairperson of Hospis Malaysia and Alpha Malaysia.
Stanley Tan
Stanley is a proud and happy father of two daughters; a businessman; and a committed humanitarian. With more than three decades of real estate investment experience in Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, his portfolio comprises townships, commercial, retail, industrial and residential developments. He currently chairs the South-Central Community Family Service Centre, =DREAMS Asia, =DREAMS Singapore, Asia Community Foundation and Co-Founder of the Asia Philanthropy Circle and a member of the Honorary Advisors of the Asia New Zealand Foundation. Stanley was previously Vice-Chairman of Singapore Red Cross Society, member of the Charity Council, Chairman of Beyond Social Services, and Chairman of the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre. He also co-founded The Hope Fund, MILK (Mainly I Love Kids) Fund, Community Foundation of Singapore and the Centre for Non-Profit Leadership.
Professor Kevin Myers
Kevin is the Learning and Teaching Lead for the programme. Kevin joined the University of Birmingham in 2000. He works on the history and sociology of education and has specific interests in the application of psychological knowledge in school systems. He serves on editorial boards for the journals Education Review, History of Education and Paedagogica Historica.
Dr Tarek Mostafa
Tarek is the Research Lead for the programme. He was a policy analyst at the OECD directorate of Education and Skills (PISA team) and a Senior Research Associate at University College London, Institute of Education. His research spanned several areas including equity in education, assessment, education and social policy, and quantitative and survey methods.
At the OECD, Tarek carried out work on teacher job satisfaction and on the effectiveness of science teaching strategies using PISA 2015 data. He also led the development of the PISA 2021 ICT framework and survey instruments. He was the main analyst and sole author of the PISA 2018 Volume VI: Are Students Ready to Thrive in an Interconnected World? This OECD report was the first of its kind as it analysed data focusing on students’ global and intercultural competencies.
Dr Donna Dawkins
Donna has had varied career experiences which have led to her current position at the University of Birmingham. From research scientist via industry to secondary school teaching and currently teaching in Higher Education (HE). She has taught Science and Biology and, most recently at the University of Birmingham, she was a Teaching Fellow responsible for the development of early career postgraduate teachers.
Additionally Donna has engaged with Teaching and Learning development at the transition from school to university in collaboration with researchers in the School of Biosciences at the University of Birmingham, and through outreach activities working with undergraduates and pupils.
Dr Dawn England
Dawn England is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham and is committed to advancing transnational education with a focus on educational leadership and social justice. Dawn’s scholarship has been guided by the notion that where a child is born should not dictate their educational opportunities afforded to them, and her work has pursued how to understand barriers to education globally with a key focus on gender, parental beliefs, and peer experiences.
She has been involved in research projects in 17 countries across 4 continents and was awarded the US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her international work studying the influences of gender development on education internationally. One such project was a 4-year longitudinal study in rural Guatemala to improve elementary school drop-out and educational attainment rates.
Dr Nicola Smith
Nicola is an Associate Professor in Primary and Early Years Education and the Director of Primary ITE. Nicola worked as a teacher and leader in primary schools in Worcestershire and Birmingham, before becoming an adult education tutor and then a Higher Education lecturer on childhood studies and ITE programmes. Her research interests include mentoring of ITE students, children and families with English as an additional language and children as researchers.
Noshaba Anbreen
As a Teacher Education lecturer, Noshaba supports prospective and early career teachers in critically exploring the relationship between pedagogy, policy and practice. Her other interests include student motivation and engagement in Science, the use of feedback in classrooms and bridging the generational gap between staff and students. Noshaba has presented at teaching conferences in the UK, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai and most recently presented on ‘Understanding Gen Z, implications for Science Teaching and Learning’ at the Abu Dhabi Teaching Conference 2019, as well as the Middle East Teaching conference 2020.
She is currently pursuing a PhD exploring digital pedagogy in teacher education and has research interests in STEM Education and generational differences in digital competency.
Dr Paul Richardson
Paul has recently joined the team from Bath Spa University, where he was a Senior Lecturer on the PGCE Primary and Early Years course. His doctorial research was on the relationships between small rural primary schools and multi-academy trusts in England. He has previously worked as a primary school teacher in the UK and has taught English as a second language in Thailand, Vietnam and Czechia.
Professor Chris Millward
Chris joined the University of Birmingham in January 2022 as Professor of Practice in Education Policy, having previously served as Director for Fair Access and Participation and as Director of Policy for England’s regulatory and funding agencies. His work is focused on generating and deploying robust evidence for tertiary education policy and practice, with a particular focus on issues of equity and inclusion across the life-course, how different educational systems influence local and national prosperity, and how they could be improved.
Dr Francesca Peruzzo
Francesca is a Research Fellow in Educational Equity and Policy. Her research interests lie in the intersection between politics, policy, education governance and inclusion, using in particular post-structural and decolonial approaches. She has published widely on ableism and higher education policy, and she is currently researching decolonial and inclusive governance in the Global South and North and its implications for equity of opportunities in a post-pandemic education. She is the author of the book Students, teachers, families, and a socially just education: Rewriting the grammar of schooling to unsettle identities (with Julie Allan) published by Lived Places Publishing.
Dr Eleni Stamou
Eleni Stamou is a Research Fellow in the Education Equity Initiative. Her research falls within the fields of Sociology of Education, Policy Studies, and Youth studies. Questions of equity and the workings of inequality are at the core of her work. She has a great interest in theory and draws analytical tools from critical and post structural approaches. Indicatively, she has conducted research on the educational experiences of migrant children and young people; youth identities, cultural heritage and belonging; inclusion and the prevention of social exclusion; educational pathways and transitions post-16. Beyond the university, she has worked as Policy Advisor in Higher Education, at the Greek Ministry of Education and is experienced in working cross-nationally to produce policy-relevant insights. She has worked with a wide range of qualitative and mixed methods, with her expertise lying in ethnographic, participatory, and arts-based methods.
Victoria Smith
Vicky is the Associate Director of Development, within Development and Alumni Relations Office at the University of Birmingham and in this capacity oversees individual philanthropy and donor experience at the University. She has experience of funding and delivering large scale projects internationally and across a number of causes from capital projects to homelessness and healthcare.
Vicky also holds a number of governance roles in the UK in her personal capacity, including as a trustee of an endowed grant maker that donates around £1 million annually to health and social inequality across the West Midlands.
Michelle Low
Michelle is the Programme Manager, Special Projects of the YTL Foundation and the Programme Liaison and R&D Partner of the Teachers for Educational Equity Initiative – an initiative co-developed by YTL Foundation and the University of Birmingham. An Egyptologist by trade, she pivoted into the world of education to redefine the way we learn History, to create educational spaces for people to collaborate and to advocate for the rights and wellbeing of teachers. Michelle is also a first year PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham’s School of Education, exploring the role of archaeogaming in the reparative future of Malaysia’s imagined community.
Claire Bylo
Claire works for the Teachers for Education Equity programme as its Project and Portfolio Manager. She has wide ranging experience in managing and developing project-based activity. Her recent assignments include contract and programme validation management for the National Institute of Teaching, a secondment to the National College of Advanced Transport and Infrastructure to establish their governance structures and acting as Business Manager for phase one of the University’s Education Equity Initiative.
An agile project specialist, she worked for the University’s ambitious CORE programme to replace its central IT systems, acting as Subject Matter Expert for document management, GDPR compliance and programme governance.
Louisa Whitehouse
Louisa works for the Teachers for Education Equity programme as its Executive Officer (Finance). In her substantive role, she is Executive Officer for the School of Education, University of Birmingham and is responsible for the administration and management of the School’s financial processes and provides executive support to the Head of School and senior management team.
Prior to this role, she was the Project and Finance Officer for the Developmental Leadership Program, a research project focusing on the links between leadership, power and political processes to successful development, which was also based out of the University of Birmingham and funded by the Australian Government. She is a mathematics graduate from the University and has previously worked in the banking and financial service sector.
Ursula Turley-Heron
Ursula is the programme’s Senior Education Administrator and is responsible for educational support. Ursula joined the University in January 2023, working as Education Support Administrator for the Initial Teacher Education team on the Secondary and Primary teaching programmes and was appointed to the role of Senior Education Administrator for the ITE PGCEi Malaysia Programme in July 2023.
Administrative and general enquiries can be sent to Ursula via the following mailbox internationalmalaysia@contacts.bham.ac.uk She will endeavour to answer your question directly or to signpost you to the right person as soon as possible.