Professor Susan Smith

Dr Susan Smith is currently Head of Curriculum Development and Review in the Centre for Learning and Teaching. She leads pan-University projects that focus on enhancing learning and teaching.

Susan joined Leeds Beckett University in 1995 as a Senior Lecturer on the BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy course. She had previously worked as a Chartered Physiotherapist, mainly in Neurology, in London and Australia.

Susan has a Masters in Sociological Methods for Health from the University of Warwick and was awarded a PhD by Published Work in 2013. She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has considerable teaching experience across a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate and professional programmes. She was Course Leader for the MSc Physiotherapy (Pre-Registration) programme between 2005-2008 and Director of the Institute for Enterprise, a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning from 2008-2011. Susan's research strengths, interests and publication outputs range across the areas of team working, interprofessional education, enterprise education, writing support and curricular design. Current research is focusing on i) student and staff perceptions of learning transfer and metacognition in higher education, and ii) reducing the BME students’ degree attainment gap.

Susan currently teaches on the Post Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice for the new academic staff. She leads a module that supports academic staff to undertake research into their teaching. She runs University- wide workshops on curricular design and approaches to learning and teaching. She supervises a number of PhD and MRes students and supports colleagues to achieve Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. She works with the Higher Education Academy as a member of the team that facilitates the Deans Development Programme and also does consultancy with University of Lincoln to support staff to publish their pedagogic research