Current posts at Loughborough University:

• Director, Engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (engCETL)
• Director, Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre (EngSC)
• Associate Dean (Teaching) of Engineering.

John joined the Department of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University in 1981 after eleven years in industry mainly working on the design and maintenance of highway bridges. He has extensive teaching experience in civil and structural engineering design and structural analysis and has at various times been Programme Director and Director of Undergraduate Studies. He became Associate Dean for Teaching in the engineering faculty in 1999, a role that covers everything from admissions to quality assurance for the 3000 students on the faculty’s taught programmes, and membership of all the university’s learning and teaching committees. In 2000 he became the first Director of the LTSN Engineering subject centre, now part of the HE Academy, which provides support for the enhancement of L&T in engineering across the UK.

As Associate Dean he had management responsibility for the faculty’s Engineering Education Centre (EEC), created in 1997 to provide support for academics in developing innovative teaching resources. The centre developed over 70 internal projects and attracted over £3M of external project funding over a seven year period. The EEC has evolved into a Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning focusing on industry input into engineering education following a successful bid to HEFCE for £4.1m in 2005.

John has been Project Director of the FDTL project RAPID which produced a web web-based PDP tool and the HEFCE strand 2 disabilities project DART which produced a web-based audit tool to aid academics in developing accessible teaching. Research projects have included a study of the structural stability of dry stone walls at World Heritage sites in Zimbabwe and consultancy work included the structural design of aluminium framed lightweight buildings.