معرفی
Dr. Katherine Haxton is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Keele University's School of Chemical and Physical Sciences. She has been with Keele since 2008, when she was appointed as a Lecturer in Chemistry, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2015. Her academic journey began with an MChem degree from the University of St Andrews in 2001, followed by a PhD from the same institution in 2004. She then completed postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she was awarded a CIHR-RxD Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Pharmacy.
Dr. Haxton is a dedicated chemistry education researcher with expertise spanning multiple areas of educational innovation. Her work focuses on factors that influence student success, including conceptual understanding, workload management, and attitudes toward study. She is an active member of a national group of STEMM-focused academics working to decolonize science curricula. Her educational scholarship publications span over a decade and cover diverse topics including feedback mechanisms, museum-based outreach, and the integration of technology in education such as lecture capture systems and screencast assessments.
Her research is driven by the key question: 'how do we ensure chemistry curricula are fit for the challenges of the 21st century?' This central theme guides her exploration of several interconnected areas: developing students' conceptual understanding and 'think like a chemist' skills; integrating sustainability and social justice into both content and teaching methods; and examining how students' attitudes and workloads impact their academic success.
Dr. Haxton has received recognition for her work, including the 2020 Green Gowns award in the Staff Sustainability Champion category for her development of the Sustainable Chemistry module and her broader efforts to promote sustainability across the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences.
- 2020 Green Gowns award, Staff Sustainability Champion
Her teaching responsibilities are extensive, covering inorganic, polymer, sustainable, and industrial chemistry across multiple year levels. She teaches courses including 2nd year multinuclear NMR, 3rd year inorganic reaction mechanisms, 3rd year polymer chemistry, 1st year sustainable chemistry, and 2nd year industrial chemistry. She also supervises final year projects and dissertations on chemistry education topics and laboratory-based sustainability projects. Dr. Haxton has developed numerous outreach activities to increase public awareness of chemistry's relevance to society, funded by organizations including the Royal Society of Chemistry, the North Staffordshire Local Section, and the Salters Institute. Her outreach work typically focuses on sustainability in chemistry and bridging the gap between creative arts and science communication.
