Biography
Heather Earnshaw is a Lecturer in Teacher Education (Physics) and is the Academic Lead for Quality Enhancement in the School of Applied Sciences.
Heather has worked in physics/STEM education for over 20 years in a variety of roles at local, regional, and national level. She has a particular interest in how we instill a real belief in ‘STEM for all’, believing that if science is worth studying, it should be genuinely and equally available to all.
Heather studied Physics at the University of Manchester and completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh. After post-doctoral studies at Arizona State University, she moved her focus to education and held a range of short-term contracts as a consultant. She subsequently qualified as a secondary school teacher and taught physics in Edinburgh for a number of years. She left teaching to lead the Improving Gender Balance and Equalities Programme (IGBE) from its inception in 2015 for 5 years. The programme worked with schools and early years’ settings to co-create and trial research-informed interventions to tackle gender imbalances in STEM education and post-school destinations. She successfully steered and grew the work from its original conception as a small-scale pilot working with six school clusters, to a much broader, more complex and high-profile national programme.
Heather contributes to leadership across the sector by co-chairing the Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE) Antiracism in Initial Teacher Education (ARITE) network and Chairing the Institute of Physics Scotland Initial Teacher Education Group. She was invited to represent SCDE on Scottish Government's Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning (GETEL) taskforce.
In her role as School Academic Lead for Quality Enhancement Heather is responsible for the implementation of the University Quality Framework within the School. She is proactive in leading and promoting activity contributing to the enhancement of learning, teaching and assessment approaches across the School.