Category Archives: TeamTalk

What members of the FMS EDI Team have been up to and what we’re planning next.

Choose To Challenge – Meet the Women of FMS: Tracy Palmer

The theme of International Women’s Day this year was #ChooseToChallenge. Here in FMS, we believe strongly in challenging gendered assumptions on working in science. It’s important to celebrate the hard working & powerful women leading our department, who set an example every day of just how much women are capable of. To all fellow women scientists out there: remember to celebrate yourselves everyday!

The third interview in our #ChooseToChallenge series is with Tracy Palmer, Theme Lead for ‘Microbes in Health and Disease’. Enjoy!

Photo of Tracy Palmer, Theme Lead for 'Microbes in Health and Disease'.

Please describe your role.

I am Theme Lead for ‘Microbes in Health and Disease’ and run a research team of 13 people. I also have numerous external roles, for example I serve on the Wellcome Science Interview panel and am a journal editor. My Theme Lead role has involved establishing the theme, developing our strategy and website. I represent the theme at institute and faculty management meetings. I help to mentor others (both within and outside of the theme) by critiquing grant and fellowship applications and helping to practice interviews.

What would a normal day look like for you?

It’s hard to say what a normal day, week or even year looks like! What most days have in common is that I do multiple different things, often several at a time. For example this week I have attended an institute management meeting, delivered a live lecture to 100+ first year students, hosted an external seminar speaker and wrote two promotion letters for colleagues. I also had zoom meetings with almost all of the members of my research group, my two final year undergraduate project students and my MRes student. I enjoy being busy and the variety of things that I do, although it can be a challenge keeping on top of everything (flagged e-mails and an organised diary are my saviours).

How have you found a balance between work and homelife during Covid?

I found working from home very tough at the start, but have managed to adapt. I have even broken my dependence on having all of my paperwork as printed hard copy! The toughest thing for me is that there is now no boundary between work and home, work is ever present and it’s hard to stop myself doing bits and pieces over the weekend. One of the other perils of working from home is wifi reliability. It’s ok early in the mornings, but really takes a hit once my sons also log on (they are aged 18 and 20, both university students living at home)!

What does it mean to you being a woman in your role?

I am very comfortable as a woman in most of my roles. Women are well represented as Theme Leads and on most of the other panels and advisory boards that I serve. I think it is very important for people in under-represented groups to be visible in leadership roles. It has been encouraging to see the number of women in these roles steadily increase during the time I have been an academic. However this is not been the case for other under-represented groups, and is one of the biggest challenges we face.

A massive thank you to Tracy for taking the time to talk to us.

Newcastle University is committed to developing careers for all colleagues, with some great success stories of women who have developed full and rewarding careers across the institution.  Historically we have supported specific women into leadership programmes such as the Aurora programme and the Women in academia – coaching and mentoring (WiCAM) programme in collaboration with Durham University, alongside broader coaching and mentoring opportunities.  As part of the university commitment to this agenda, work is currently underway to review our development offerings with a view to launching a refreshed offer in the autumn to ensure we have the right support in place.

Choose To Challenge – Meet the Women of FMS: Catherine Exley

The theme of International Women’s Day this year was #ChooseToChallenge. Here in FMS, we believe strongly in challenging gendered assumptions on working in science. It’s important to celebrate the hard working & powerful women leading our department, who set an example every day of just how much women are capable of. To all fellow women scientists out there: remember to celebrate yourselves everyday!

The second interview in our #ChooseToChallenge series is with Catherine Exley, Dean of NU Population Health Sciences Institute. Enjoy!

A photo of Catherine Exley, Dean of NU Population Health Sciences Institute.

Please describe your role.

I am Dean of NU Population Health Sciences Institute, one of the three new Institutes formed in November 2019 as a result of the Good to Great faculty reorganisation. My role means I am responsible for an institute which comprises 236 colleagues and 165 postgraduate researcher students. We are a multidisciplinary community comprising colleagues from a range of clinical and academic disciplines who contribute to learning and teaching across all schools in FMS as well as leading and collaborating on a diverse body of research. In addition to my head of academic unit role, I am also responsible for the faculty’s Engagement and Place portfolio, and work closely with Tom Scharf, Katharine Rogers and Charlie Wilkinson and the broader university engagement team to ensure that the brilliant work we do in FMS is captured and celebrated. Finally, I also chair the University’s Health and Well-Being committee; this a real privilege to chair and the committee has been active throughout the pandemic providing support and guidance.

What would a normal day look like for you?

This is a difficult question to answer at this point, and even when I was on campus every day, I don’t think there was a ‘normal’ day. I tend to get up about 6-6.30 during the working week, I read the BBC news, switch on the radio and check my email and diary for the day. We have recently (like many families!) bought a puppy, so our day now starts with walking her on the beach. In addition, the morning routine involves ensuring my son is up and ready for school (early mornings aren’t his thing!), probably throwing a load of washing in the machine and thinking about what everyone is going to eat throughout the day!

The great thing about my role is that each day is so varied, bringing its own joy and problems. The one thing that is pretty consistent is that I have a lot of meetings and receive a lot of emails. With my ‘Dean hat’ on, the meetings I attend can be university, faculty or institute level or 1:1 with colleagues. I work particularly closely with our Institute Operations team which comprises both PS and academic colleagues who have worked really hard ‘behind the scenes’ to keep our institute working in these challenging times. I also have regular catch ups with our Executive who lead a number of our faculty research themes as well as meeting with our EDI and DELT and PGRSC. With my ‘Cath hat’ on I continue to be involved in both research and teaching, in particular I have a number of postgraduate students I supervise, which remains one of the best things about my job. It really is a privilege to work with these colleagues and (hopefully) support them in their academic journey to achieve their PhDs. I am also involved with a number of mentoring schemes across the faculty and university and have regular catch-up with those colleagues too.

The other thing that is consistent and normal in any day is that I walk as much as I can. I live by the coast and I love walking by the sea. This is my ‘head space’ and time for me whether that’s clearing my head over lunch time, or at the end of a day of Zooms. In the last six months, I have tried to consciously switch off from work email in the evening. I’ve even moved the app on my phone so I can’t accidently access it! I am not an owl, so after some food and a bit of television to wind down (often a food-based programme) it’s off to bed for me usually by 10.30.

How have you found a balance between work and homelife during Covid?

When you’re asked a question like this, it’s really hard to answer as I know that I have not had the challenges many people have had during this time.  As I have worked from home the odd day for many years, I am I am very fortunate that I was able to adjust relatively easily to working at home.

I live with my husband and (nearly) 15 year old son, and latterly our 5 month old puppy! During the last year we have all been at home for quite a lot of the time, apart from when the schools were open to non-essential workers. By and large we have rubbed along OK. My husband has found lockdowns much easier than me as he is happy with his spreadsheets!  I miss people. I miss social contact. I miss the informality of just bumping into colleagues and being able to ‘check things out’ rather than have to schedule a formal meeting. Home schooling is nowhere near the challenge for me has it has been for many of my colleagues who have younger children at home. But I still worry about the short and long-term impacts of all of this on my son (and indeed all children and young people). What has been hard is the ‘blurred boundaries’ between home and work. When I go into the campus I focus entirely on my work and have a much higher level of concentration. At home, even though we are a small family there are always additional things to think about, washing to do, meals to think about, or questions to respond to. I think working in this way for a prolonged period has been really tiring and draining for all of us   Hopefully by the time we are celebrating IWD2021 many more children will be returning to the classroom!

What does it mean to you being a woman in your role?

Again, this is a hard question to answer. I never set out with a career plan to be an academic, let alone have any kind of leadership role. I am the eldest of three girls and the first person in my family to go to university. My father is a farmer and my mother a teacher, both of them are retired now. Whilst neither of them would see themselves as feminists, growing up I never had any sense that I couldn’t achieve whatever I wanted to (although I had no idea what that meant!).

At school I had planned to do a law degree, but actually went to university and started a degree in social sciences, before transferring to single honours Sociology. As an undergraduate I was inspired by one of my tutors who was living through breast cancer treatment, and focussed my dissertation on looking at hers, and other women’s experiences, of health and health care and how these were shaped by gender. I never planned to do a PhD, but was fortunate to be awarded some internal funding to cover my fees and a partial stipend which I supplemented with teaching. Women were a big part of my PhD as I interviewed younger people receiving care at a local hospice about their experiences of living with a terminal condition. In the mid 1990s many of those I interviewed were women with advanced breast and ovarian cancer. Nearly 25 years later those women and their stories stay with me, and I remain grateful to them all for giving up their very precious time to speak to a naïve researcher.

In 2003, I moved to Newcastle as a Lecturer and since this time I have been fortunate to work with many inspirational colleagues, both women and men, who have supported and encouraged me throughout my career. I try to emulate what I have learnt from many of those brilliant colleagues, mentors and friends. I hope I am open and honest. I don’t always get things right and like everyone there are times when I wake at night worrying about things. However, being an academic is just one part of my world and whilst I may not be the best at any one thing and make mistakes, I am proud of what I have achieved thus far as a daughter, sister, partner, friend, mum and academic.

A huge thank you to Catherine for taking the time to talk to us.

Newcastle University is committed to developing careers for all colleagues, with some great success stories of women who have developed full and rewarding careers across the institution.  Historically we have supported specific women into leadership programmes such as the Aurora programme and the Women in academia – coaching and mentoring (WiCAM) programme in collaboration with Durham University, alongside broader coaching and mentoring opportunities.  As part of the university commitment to this agenda, work is currently underway to review our development offerings with a view to launching a refreshed offer in the autumn to ensure we have the right support in place.

Choose to challenge – Meet THE WOMEN OF FMS: Amy reeve

Today is International Women’s Day 2021! The theme this year is #ChooseToChallenge. Here in FMS, we believe strongly in challenging gendered assumptions on working in science. It’s important to celebrate the hard working & powerful women leading our department, who set an example every day of just how much women are capable of. To all fellow women scientists out there: remember to celebrate you today and everyday!

On that note, starting today, we will be releasing a series of blog posts spotlighting our female leaders as the role models they are. This first interview is with Amy Reeve, research fellow within the Translational and Clinical Research Institute, and co-director of EDI within FMS. Enjoy!

A photo of Amy Reeve, research fellow and co-director of EDI within FMS.

Please describe your role.

I am a research fellow within the Translational and Clinical Research Institute. I lead a small research team whose focus is on furthering our understanding of the causes of Parkinson’s with an aim to identify new neuroprotective treatments for this disease. I am also one of the Co-Directors of EDI for the Faculty of Medical Sciences with Dr. Damian Parry.

What would a normal day look like for you?

It depends on the day!

Every day starts with time with my son, I drop him off at nursery and then start my work day.

On my research days I touch base with my students and Post-doc providing support and guidance when needed. I then usually do some experiments, typically cell culture or tissue based. Then I spend some time reading and writing, papers and grants mostly. When I have time I also like to take part in public engagement events.

On my EDI days, I catch up with our core FMS EDI team, chair and sit in on meetings, and work to support any initiatives or ongoing projects, for example the Athena Swan Action Plan or the Race Equality Charter work.

Then I pick up my son and catch up on the highs and lows of pre-school life. Cue lots of drama!

If I have a heavy work load I might then do a couple of hours when he is in bed before starting it all again the next day.

How have you found a balance between work and homelife during Covid?

Finding a work life balance is something that I have always struggled with and COVID has certainly made this feel more difficult. A balance implies that both these aspects make the same demands on your time, but unfortunately this is not the case. My son never emails me out of ‘mum hours’, or expects me to take hours out of my work day to complete a Lego project or read his latest story. The pandemic has been a struggle for many, and at times I have found it played to my anxieties about being a successful researcher while having enough time for my son. During the first lockdown when nurseries were closed, I did find it tough maintaining a balance as I had to devote more time to being a mum, I worried about my work outputs and about what the impact would be long term. I worked into the evenings and over weekends to ‘make up the hours’. However, on reflection in many ways I am grateful for those extra days I got to spend with my son, the milestones I got to share with him and the fun we had. I still worry about my work outputs but I have realised that there are somethings that are not worth compromising!

My work life balance has improved, as I now make more effort to separate work and home, I don’t check emails during the evening or over the weekend. Although, I do make sure that my team have my mobile number in case of emergencies. I am also trying to be more realistic about what I can achieve in a working week and I am working on my delegation skills!!

What does it mean to you being a woman in your role?

I fell into research a little bit, being a researcher was not my dream. I wanted to be an archaeologist or a vet! When I was at University though I became fascinated by the brain and how it worked. So when I found an advert for a PhD that aimed to understand what made it go wrong I was hooked!! I am proud to be a woman in STEM research, I am proud that we are making a difference. I am grateful for the women, the pioneers, who went before me for lighting the way and I hope that one day I will guide the way for other women.

As for my EDI role, I am humbled to be able to be a part of a team who strives for the equality of all within FMS. I am immensely proud to have been given the opportunity to enact change within FMS and to ensure that the voices of all are heard across the faculty and beyond.


A huge thank you to Amy for taking the time to talk to us.

Newcastle University is committed to developing careers for all colleagues, with some great success stories of women who have developed full and rewarding careers across the institution.  Historically we have supported specific women into leadership programmes such as the Aurora programme and the Women in academia – coaching and mentoring (WiCAM) programme in collaboration with Durham University, alongside broader coaching and mentoring opportunities.  As part of the university commitment to this agenda, work is currently underway to review our development offerings with a view to launching a refreshed offer in the autumn to ensure we have the right support in place.

Meet the Leads – Hawa Fathi

Back again with another Meet The Leads interview by Claire Bailie, last year’s FMS EDI intern. This interview is with EDI Lead Hawa Fathi, lecturer in Materials Sciences and Technology at the School of Dental Sciences, from late summer last year. Enjoy!

Tell us a bit about your background. What are some of your hobbies/interests outside of work?

It sounds like a series of choices when I tell it from where I am now. I am a lecturer in Materials Sciences and Technology at the School of Dental Sciences. I began as a dental technician and after my first degree I worked in a dental lab for a while. I got very interested in research, so I went ahead and did a master’s in Dental Biomaterials, mainly bioactive glass-ceramics. When I finished my master’s degree I worked as a teaching assistant for few years at various universities where I was involved with different projects. Then I felt that I wanted to do a PhD, so I continued the work that I started in my Masters to developed new glass-ceramic materials which showed to be promising to use as restorative materials. After my PhD, I worked as a teaching assistant at Sheffield University for a couple of years, then this job came up and I feel it is the perfect job for me. I’ve been in this post since November 2016, and last September I was given the opportunity to be the EDI School Lead. In terms of my hobbies and interests outside of my role, I love cooking and baking, I cook all types of food. I like making and decorating cakes and always make sure that my daughters are involved, especially with cake decorations! I enjoy listening to a music as well.


What caused your interest in EDI? What aspects do you feel most passionate about?

What cause me to be passionate about EDI is that I’ve seen a great positive change and I want to continue the amazing work that has been done so far. EDI allows people to have respect for their colleagues and peers, regardless of their backgrounds and characteristics. I wanted to be an advocate, actively involved in planning strategies that support all members to promote and maintain a diverse in the school and wider community, and to enjoy the discussion, planning, and work we can do together.

What made you want to apply for the role of EDI Lead?

To be honest, I didn’t know much about the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion role before, but when I was given the opportunity to be the School EDI Lead, I read the role descriptions and specifications, I took time to reflect on the role and how much of a challenge it would be. I believed it would be a good opportunity to advocate for people to make a positive change, by empowering them, changing policies, and through being actively involved in planning strategies that support all members of the school community to strive for and maintain a diverse and inclusive environment, where all are treated with dignity and respect and valued for their differences. I really felt I could make a difference.

What does an average day look like for you in your role?

I don’t think there is an average day, each day is different. I have two roles, my academic role and professional role. The balance of my time, certainly a lot is spent on the academic role: making sure my teaching is on track, giving seminars on Zoom especially in the current situation of COVID-19, reviewing the course guide, having supervisory meetings with students and assessing with their work, giving them feedback and so on. In regards to the leadership role as EDI Lead, I am a member of the School Strategy Team. During the current pandemic period the Contingency Strategy Team meet daily, making sure that issues are addressed, meeting with the EDI team and EDI Officers frequently and ensuring that EDI concerns are heard and dealt with. I am also ensuring that EDI training is available for all students and staff, and many other commitments we have to deal with on a day to day basis.

Have you had any prior roles or experiences that helped you prepare for this role?

I didn’t have any leadership roles before this, except in academia in terms of course leading. When I took on the role of EDI Lead, I did some management and leadership workshops and I have built up quite a bit of knowledge on how to manage things and how we can bring about change on a larger scale. I feel extremely supported by the Dean of School who has been very willing to listen and develop strategies and plans, also, the EDI Admin Lead. There are some very approachable people with real integrity here. This makes me feel that I have been trusted to drive positive change.

What have you found challenging in your role?

The biggest challenge I find is that people within the school find it very uncomfortable to talk about race and raise any concerns or issues that they are facing. I understand the importance of not only a small minority of people speaking out, but also having everyone’s voices heard so they feel empowered to speak out. We have done lots of work regarding Black Lives Matter within the school, and with the current climate in light of all that has happened recently, including the increase of The Black Lives Matter movement, I feel that diversity and inclusion needs to be promoted more than ever. We have to focus on the crucial issues of racial justice and aim to engage in a meaningful exchange about the impact that students and staff are having. We are looking towards how we can listen and learn together and create a call to action. That will be a bit of a challenge, however working with a fantastic group of people within our school I’m positive that this challenge will become easier.

What do you enjoy most about being an EDI Lead?

Working with a great, lovely, helpful and supportive team, not only within the EDI School Committee but also within the whole school and across the Faculty. Being an EDI Lead gives me the opportunity to recognise how diverse our community is, and has given me the chance to work with a number of diverse people in terms of their roles, culture, position and their quality. It also gave me an opportunity to build up my network widely by interacting with the students and staff. I’ve been lucky to work with a great team of staff and student EDI officers. As a team we understand the importance of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, we all are working together to ensure that EDI is embedded in everything that the school does and to create a supportive working environment for all members of the community. Being an EDI lead is an enjoyable challenge!

A huge thank you to Hawa for taking the time to talk to us. For a full list of the current EDI team, click here!

Meet the Leads – Stephen Hughes

To continue our Meet The Leads series, here’s an interview Claire Bailie did with Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice and EDI Lead Stephen Hughes from summer last year!

Tell us a bit about your background. What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of work?

I completed a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy, I’ve worked as a community pharmacist for nearly 30 years and just recently I did a masters and a PhD about long-term condition management; in particular, the interaction between patients and their practitioners around managing long term conditions and how to get the best out of that. For my PhD we were particularly interested in goal setting, a lot of what sits in policy is that practitioners have to support people with long term conditions to set goals for their health, so we were interested in how that actually comes about in practice. 

Since then, I’ve been starting some research but I’m also teaching a fair bit with Pharmacy students, particularly pharmacy practice because that’s my background. I’m particularly interested in supporting practitioners to see the patient’s perspective on what it’s like to be a patient and what it’s like to interact with healthcare practitioners. I think it helps give practitioners more empathy and understanding of patients, and also to try break down that historical paternalistic role of practitioners.

I love the outdoors as much as possible, I’d prefer to live outside than indoors! That includes walking, cycling, swimming wherever I possibly can. I like having a broad range of friends from different demographics, people with different interests and perspectives and I’m always keen to engage in those sorts of conversations. I’ve also got a couple of little kids, two girls.

What caused your interest in EDI? What aspects do you feel most passionate about?

My father went to university, and I went but that’s not the same for everyone – I think particularly in the North East there’s a lot of people who are the first in their family to go to university, so I think that’s an area where we need to support people. If people don’t have that sort of natural role model tohelp you know what to do when you go to university, how to act and who to talk to, and just someone to follow… The ease of thinking and mental shortcuts that you get if you’ve seen someone else do it, if you don’t have that then it’s little bit newer and more difficult or challenging. I see that as important. I think it also speaks to a broader idea of how we can support everybody to achieve their best; whatever sort of barriers that are put up in front of people, thinking of how can we individually or as an institution try and remove some of those is important. Particularly in the School of Pharmacy where I come from, I think we have a lot of students as first-in-families here in the University which is great. How can we support them even in the next level, not just getting that first degree, but maybe going on to second degrees if someone wants to as well?

Have you had any prior roles or experiences that helped you prepare for the role of EDI Lead?

I’m new to the role and to EDI as such, I think it’s a particularly ‘UK’ thing. I come from Australia and obviously there’s efforts to improve equality, diversity and inclusion there,but I haven’t seen EDI couched in such terms. The Athena SWAN charter and the Race Equality Charter are UK specific things. But, with that in mind, my work as a pharmacist is all about equality of treatment for every person that walks through the door.That’s something that I’ve always tried to think about in a practitioner role, looking beyond the outward characteristics of the person that’s in front of you and thinking about them as having innate potential to be able to look after themselves. Don’t see deficits in front of you, see potential and positives. No one’s perfect, it doesn’t always work out that way, but it’s something to be guided by.

What are the main things you want to achieve during this role?

From a school perspective I’d like to see all members of the school view it as important and to individually reflect on their own individual biases, unconscious biases or behaviours that may be contributing to EDI imbalances.I guess that’s probably the main thing. I don’t come from the position of being in a minority characteristic group at all and that might be a challenge for an individual taking on this role, but I have to see it as a strength and how can I use it to convince others in my school that may also have ‘dominant’ characteristics, but have power to be able to change behaviors. 

What does an average day look like for you in your role?

I’m an individual as a Lead, but we agree to work as a committee rather than as individuals. As a committee, we all had a good discussion about it, we went round and said, “Okay, what’s important to you?”. We all decided that for all our activities, in our individual interactions with students or in any other role we have within the University we need to have our EDI lens on, whether that’s gathering information or speaking out where there’s issues. That’s probably the thing that we think about most as the Committee, it’s a valuable role and we need to treat it seriously.Day to day, there’s answering emails and promoting what’s coming from the Faculty and the University, as well as liaising with the School Executive.

What do you feel you get out of your role? 

I think any role that’s a challenge and puts you out of your comfort zone is something we should relish and go towards with open eyes. The interactions with different people with different perspectives, and seeing things with an open mind. A rule of thumb as an EDI lead is to listen more than I talk.

How do you balance being an EDI Lead with other commitments?

We’ll see how this year goes! 

What do you enjoy most about being an EDI Lead?

The thing I’ve enjoyed most is a time when I went to my first School Executive meeting and I opened the discussion up. I said, “Well, these are the things that we talked about as a committee,” and I started to listen, and what I really enjoyed was that every member of the School Executive committee, the high positions in the school, all contributed and robustly discussed EDI issues. From the strengths that the school had and potentially some of the weaknesses, they all agreed that it’s something that’s very important to them. That robust discussion lasted for the best part of 45-50 minutes in a busy school executive agenda. I think that’s something that as a school we can be proud of, that we’re taking it seriously, it’s not a tick box exercise and we’re going to turn our minds towards what we can do as a school, what we have done already and what we should celebrate.