Dr Cristina Devecchi

Cristina Devecchi is co-director of the Centre for Education and Research where she is responsible for the PhD programme and PhD admissions. Before joining the University of Northampton, Cristina taught Italian and English to adults and young children in the UK and abroad and worked as a Teaching Learning Support Assistant in a secondary school. She gained an MEd in Special and Inclusive Education, MPhil in Educational Research and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She currently supervises 12 PhD students using a variety of methodological approaches and researching diverse topics within education. She is the Chair of the Business and Education Research Degree Board and a member of the Faculty of Health, Education and Society's Research and Enterprise Committee.

She has collaborated as a researcher and Principal Investigator to a number of projects on a variety of topics related to inclusion. She has led on the EU funded project Success at School (www.successatschool.eu) developing volunteering-based intervention to re-engage young people into education, and she is currently the UK lead for the Below 10 project, aiming at tackling school drop-out. She was Principal Investigator on the Leading Change Together project (http://www.northampton.ac.uk/research/leading-change-together/), funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, looking at leadership and change management in UK Higher Education; the FEASST@8 and SuCCEED@8 project, funded by the Institute for Learning and Teaching, focusing on developing discipline-based training at PhD level, and the TECH4ALL projects focused on developing digital skills for learning and teaching in higher education. She is currently involved in a project looking at effective organisational communication.

Cristina is a reviewer for a number of journals, and for the European Educational Research Association (EERA). She was a research associate at the Von Hugel Institute, St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge and she was a coordinator of the Education thematic group for the Human Development and Capability Association. She is the co-founder and chair of the Cambridge Education Alumni Group and the Future Focused Group looking at the use of technology for teaching and learning, research and social impact.

Research interests: Inclusion; educational leadership; Higher Education; Human resource and knowledge management; technology.

CURRENT AND PAST RESPONSIBILITIES

Chair (2014-present)

Business and Education Research Degree Board

Chair (2017-2019)

Readers, Associate Professors and Professors (RAPP) Group

Co-Director (2017- present)

Centre for Education and Research

Co-Lead (2021-present)

Further, Higher and Adult Education Special Interest Group

Centre for Education and Research

PhD Coordinator

Faculty of Education and Humanities  (2017-2019)

Level 8 Lead (Education)

Faculty of Health, Education and Society (2019- present)

Member of University Committees

• Research Degree Committee (2013 - present)
• Research and Enterprise Committee (2013 - present)
• Faculty Research and Enteprise Committee (2013 - present)
• Academic Senate (2012-2016; 2019-present)

Member of Working Groups

• PGR Teaching Opportunities (Lead on behalf of the Research Degree Committee)
• PGR mental health and wellbeing

Deputy Research Leader (2013-2016)

Centre for Education and Research, School of Education

Co-founder of the Future Focused Group, University of Northampton, (2018- 2020)

• Editor in Chief (2017-2018) – Efficiency Exchange
• Expert Evaluator – H2020, SwafS programme (Science with and for Society) (2018-present)
• Expert Evaluator and international advisory board member (teaching and learning) – Excellent Department project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research – Faculty of Philosophy and Education, University of Turin, Italy (2019-2022)
• Advisory panel member: InDEEP project, University of Padova
• Advisory panel member: Capitals Framework project (2021-present)
• External examiner: MEd programme, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Republic of Ireland (2019-present)
• Peer reviewer – ‘Theme 5: How higher education institutions respond to COVID-19, build resilience through research and knowledge creation, and find solutions to global challenges’ - Association of Commonwealth Universities & Commonwealth Secretariat (Current)

• Social Sciences research methods and methodologies
• Inclusion (particularly inclusion in Higher Education)
• Leadership and management in Higher Education
• PhD supervision and career development

Co-Coordinator, Education Thematic Group, Human Development and Capability Association (2013-2015)

Member of the Von Hugel Institute, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge (2006-2010)