Staff Profile

Career Summary

Biography

Qualifications

• PhD, Loughborough University - UK, 17/12/2012
• Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Leicester Polytechnic - England, 18/06/1986

Research

Research keywords

• Critical thinking
• Design thinking
• Practice based action research and phenomenology

Research expertise

As a Professor at the University of Newcastle it is my personal responsibility to be an engaging and eloquent advocate for the core values of my discipline at both national and international forums. I am particularly focused on the role of design research and development in relation to climate change, economic betterment and human behaviour. I am also committed to developing a better understanding of the role of drawing as both a language for art and design practice, and as a means of thinking and researching social and personal issues. Examples of the application of this kind of thinking can be seen in the project with Birmingham Children’s Hospital conducted with Professor D Kelly and her team and in the recent Ikon Lunar debates. The purpose of my work is to remediate experience and ideas allowing the viewer to think beyond their normal confines. The activities within visual communication as a discipline have to have social agency as well as economic impact.

While my research activities have developed from my practice as an artist and designer. I believe that design as a means of thinking can be universally applied and that it traverses all disciplines within a University – that at its core it captures the interdisciplinary ethos of my school and attracts many international partners and friends.

Therefore my work in this field is intended to be an authoritative source of reference, instruction and critical thinking, while remaining politically provocative and intellectually disruptive.

This approach has allowed me to make a significant contribution to the discipline of art and design. Which has been achieved through practice based research resulting in academic papers, international conferences, as well as exhibitions, publications and media broadcasts.

Fields of Research

Memberships

Committee/Associations (relevant to research).

• Common Ground International Arts and Design Conferences Executive
• Lunar Society Executive Committee

Editorial Board.

• Editor - Common Ground Publishing
• Editor - Arts in Society

National & International Standards Committees.

• Member - The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (UK)

Appointments

Invitations

Collaboration

- 2010 work accepted into ‘Vortex’: Archive and virtual gallery to further the dialogue on the iconography of war and peace.

- Drawings and adviser role for television series by Hurricane films, war over the generations.

- Contracts with: BBC, Guardian and Financial Times (1986-99)

Administrative

Administrative expertise

• Head of School (Birmingham City Uni UK)
• Academic Director (Loughborough University UK)
• Member of University Governing body (Academic Director University School of Art & Design Loughborough University )
• Research review board (Common Ground Publishing)
• Quality assurance in HE learning and teaching (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education UK)

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Visual Communication Design