Meeting – 13 July 2021

The committee met today and the main point of discussion on the agenda was the topic of decolonising the curriculum. As equality, diversity and inclusion committee we have been asked by our Head of School to consider this topic alongside the wider work that is happening at the College and university-wide level. From September 2021, the university-wide Decolonisation of the Curriculum Oversight Group will be reorganised into a Working Group consisting of champions appointed by each school, which will be responsible for advancing work on decolonisation of the curriculum, and a Steering Committee, which will provide strategic leadership to the project.

While this work is developing, and recognising the need to take action now in time for the beginning of next academic term, we are going to start by raising awareness and sharing best-practice examples of decolonisation of the curriculum at our next school meeting in September. As always, we will share our progress on this blog in future posts.

Meeting – 23 June 2021

Our meeting this month focused on the delay to our application for the Athena Swan submission. After discussions within our committee, last month we decided that we would rather delay our submission until later in the year. This was a set back on our ambition and target date, however all the work put in by the committee to complete the application will still be valid for our revised application for the new submission date.

Meanwhile, the committee also considered an important report that was kindly shared with us by the Plant and Animal Sciences Department of the University of Sheffield. The report considers the topic of decolonising the curriculum. There is other ongoing work across the University of Lincoln taking into account this important topic, and as a committee, we will highlight best practice to share with the rest of the School of Life Sciences before the teaching resumes in the autumn term.

Spotlight – Emily Green

A picture of Emily Green
Emily Green at work

I’m a PhD student in the School of Life Sciences, studying Palaeontology, more specifically the evolution of complexity. I started my palaeo career at the University of Bristol, completing an integrated masters in Palaeobiology. I have been involved in a number of projects tackling a wide range of paleontological questions, from the position of ctenophores in the tree of life, to 3D reconstructions of modern life’s closes cousins, Ediacarans. My favourite project so far has been a study of fossilised poo from the Triassic, which we used to create a food web for a 205-million-year-old ecosystem!

One of my favourite parts of Palaeontology is how varied it is. As a discipline, it utilises any methods it can get its hands, from geology to chemistry, and so each new question can lead you down so many different paths when trying to answer it! Palaeontology always fascinated me as a child, mainly because it seemed as close as one could get to studying real-life dragons. It combines both science and a bit of imagination to picture and understand all these distant bygone lands, that all satisfyingly operate under unifying biological principles.

I have loved furthering my studies at Lincoln, especially with the support of my wonderful supervisors, being so welcoming and helpful!

There is a great community of post-grad students, always up for a weekly coffee break and chat, which has been lovely during the pandemic…

I never have a good answer to “What is your favourite dinosaur?”, a response which I feel I should have locked and loaded, ready to answer any 7-year-old that asks. I prefer a good mammoth…..

Spotlight – Dr Natalia Fili

An image of Dr Natalia Fili
Dr Natalia Fili

I have recently joined the School of Life Sciences as a Lecturer of Biomedical Biochemistry. Following my PhD at CRUK-London Research Institute, I pursued a Postdoctoral Career Development Fellowship at the MRC-National Institute for Medical Research in London. After a short postdoctoral position at EPFL, Switzerland, and then a PDRA position at LMU Munich, Germany, I returned to the UK as a Royal Society Newton International Fellow, at the University of Kent. I then continued my research as a PDRA in the group of Dr. Toseland, before relocating with his group to the University of Sheffield.

It is great to have joined the welcoming and friendly environment of the School of Life Sciences and I am looking forward to exciting and stimulating teaching and research.

My research interest focuses on myosins, motor proteins that move along the actin cytoskeleton. I am interested in understanding the mechanisms through which these proteins are regulated in mammalian cells and how disruption of this regulation can lead disease. To achieve this, I follow an interdisciplinary approach that combines cell biology and protein biochemistry with advanced fluorescence microscopy and single molecule imaging.

Meeting – 6 May 2021

Career coaching
The School and EDI committee launched a career coaching scheme

With all the activity for the upcoming Athena Swan submission and other teaching related duties, I missed posting about our committee meeting last 1st April 2021. For the last and yesterday’s meeting, on 6th May, the sole focus of our discussions has the been the submission. We discussed the draft, which we jointly wrote, and the Action Plan, written by our chair, Jenny Dunn.

We do have other news to report though. Between the last two meetings, the coaching subgroup, led by our senior technician, Alex Aitken and our school research lead, Mat Goddard, launched the brand new School of Life Sciences Coaching Scheme. The scheme is open to all from postgraduate students to academics and technicians and we are actively recruiting mentees as well as mentors. If you’d like to know more or ask any questions, please email the team at CoachingSLS@lincoln.ac.uk.

Meeting – 4 March 2021

As with our last meeting, this month the committee focused, for the large part, on going through our draft application for the upcoming Athena Swan school-level submission. With the internal submission deadline for application approaching, we revised the draft text and Action Plan. A lot of work has been going behind the scenes to obtain the data needed for the application. The data encompass students (undergraduates and postgraduates), academic, technical and professional staff as well as applicants for our degrees and candidates for new positions.

During the meeting, we discussed a new draft policy on committee representation and composition which we will pass on for discussion and approval to the School Management Committee. This is to ensure that committee representation is reviewed regularly, reflects any changes in staff, and ensures principles of equality, diversity and inclusion are embedded in every committee.

Spotlight – Chelsy Cliff

Chelsy Cliff
Chelsy Cliff at work in Joseph Banks Laboratories

I am a PhD student in the School of Life Sciences and funded by a University of Lincoln scholarship. Whilst studying my MBio in Bioveterinary Science at the University of Lincoln, the staff were supportive and encouraging and so I was keen to continue studying my PhD here. I met with my supervisor, Dr Claire Hills, who supported me throughout the application process which included a presentation of my previous research to date in front of a staff panel.


Receiving the scholarship has opened so many career opportunities by allowing me to study for my PhD without financial pressures. As part of my scholarship I demonstrate in undergraduate practical experiments that has allowed me to develop a new set of skills and will contribute to a Higher Education Academy application.


The staff members in the School of Life Sciences and PGR community have helped me to develop the skills needed to progress in the future and challenged me to be the best I can.

Meeting – 8 February 2021

Athena Swan Gender Charter logo
Advanced HE Athen Swan Gender Charter logo

Our meeting this month was spent, for the large part, going through our draft application for the upcoming Athena Swan school-level submission. We learnt that, in a proactive move, Advanced Higher Education has moved the application deadline to the 28th May 2021 in recognition of the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the work of the Self-Assessment Team, in particular the closure of schools and the most recent lockdown of January 2021. In addition, the application will also feature a specific extension to the application word limit to consider the impact of Covid-19 on the application.

During the meeting, we identified a number of key challenges and actions which will inform our application.

Spotlight – Alice Buckner

Spotlights

We are going to run a series of Spotlights on committee members, staff and students to raise the profile of colleagues in the School and get to know each other now we are socially distanced and a lot of us are based at home. Here Alice Buckner, one of our research postgraduates and a PGR rep, introduces herself.


An image of Alice BucknerAfter studying BSc Bioveterinary Science at the University of Lincoln I knew I wanted to continue my academic journey with an MSc, and where better than at the very university I have grown to love and call home! I am currently working my way through MSc Bioveterinary Science by Research studying the parasite liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica) in cattle and sheep. This really is the ideal course for me with the perfect level of freedom in developing my own research project alongside the support provided by the PGR community.

The School of Life Sciences has really been key in my development throughout my time here, not just in terms of teaching, but in the wider perspective of support. I started off my time at the university in 2017 as an extremely shy individual, but through the careful nurturing and unending support of the staff I have become the more self-confident and outgoing person I am today. I have been able to do things I never believed I could do at the start of my degree – I’ve been elected one of the course reps for both my BSc and MSc degrees, I’ve worked alongside my peers and tutors to run the Bioveterinary Science Society, and I have engaged in extracurricular courses which have really helped me grow as a person and scientist.

The current pandemic has really shown the resilience and determination of the staff and students here and I think this Spotlight is a great way of introducing us to each other and ensuring the continuity of the community feeling of the School I have grown to love.

Despite never meeting the majority of the people on my course, I feel as if I am getting to know them with my time as a PGR rep enabling me to be a voice communicating their feedback to staff and student representatives. From previous experience, the staff really take into account student feedback and ensure their views are included in decision making. I can’t think of another place I’d rather be living or studying and know that my experiences here stand me in good stead for wherever my future may take me.

Meeting – 13 January 2021

In our first meeting of 2021 we discussed our forthcoming submission for the Athena Swan award. We are trying to access all the various data that we need, which will need to be sourced in some cases directly from staff, but mostly our Human Resources department will provide. Meanwhile, lots of equality and diversity activity is happening behind the scenes, both at the school and at the college level. At the college level, the university launched a call last summer 2020 for members to join the College Inclusion Committee. Now that the work of the college committee is under way, we, as equality and diversity committee at the school level, have a more direct and simpler route to escalate any actions that go beyond the school remit.

Key discussion topics centred around our forthcoming coaching scheme in the last phase before the official launch, the results from our latest staff culture survey, and the re-launch of the early career researchers committee. There’s lots more work that should come to fruition in the coming months.