Meet the team

Claire Lee

Dr Claire Lee has recently taken up a five-year Research Fellowship in the Centre for Psychological Research.at Oxford Brookes University, focusing on applied social psychology and its links with educational research. Before that she worked as Early Career Research fellow for the Children and Young People RIKE (Research, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange) Network at Oxford Brookes University. Claire is delighted to be leading the Our World, Our Futures project, an initiative of the CYP Network.

Claire was a primary school teacher for many years before completing her PhD in 2020. She is interested in the ways in which children actively use literacies, in their broadest sense, to make sense of the world and to develop a sense of self. She is passionate about involving children in ethically appropriate ways in dialogue about their lives. In her research she creates spaces in which participants use arts-based and multimodal methods to explore the things that matter to them.

Claire has also worked with teachers to conduct qualitative research in their own settings as a way of developing contextually appropriate practice and supporting their professional autonomy.

Email: clairelee@brookes.ac.uk

Aminath Shiyama

Dr Aminath Shiyama works at The Maldives National University (MNU). Although she is currently the Quality Assurance Controller, she is an Assistant Professor with a research and teaching background in science and science education. Shiyama has extensive experience in teacher education, with a focus on teacher professional development and learning.

She has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the Faculty of Education of MNU. Her significant contribution was to science teaching methodology, research methods, curriculum development and comparative and international education.

Aminath strongly advocates contextually contingent practices in education, especially in policies and in practice. As such, Aminath too believes in the power and importance of communities of practice in teaching and learning and its essentiality in transforming education for a more culturally respectful and sustainable approach to our development.

Research interests focus on science and environment education pedagogies, teacher professional development and learning and curriculum development. She researches all these areas from a comparative education lens.

Email: aminath.shiyama@mnu.edu.mv

Fathimath Nasiha

Ms Fathimath Nasiha Abdul Muhaimin is the Head of Centre of the Centre for Foundation Studies at The Maldives National University (MNU). She was working as the lead Instructional Designer at the Centre for Educational Technology and Excellence, MNU until September 2020. She completed her Master of Education degree from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia in 2010. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree (English Literature, Film and Art, La Trobe University, Australia) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (MNU, Maldives).

Ms Nasiha’s research interests are in distance education and technology-enabled education, and was the project manager of the AMED, an Erasmus+ project aimed at advancing higher education in Maldives through e-learning until her appointment at CFS in September 2020. She is pursuing her PhD studies at the Universiti Sains Malaysia and is exploring self-paced online professional development for online teaching.

Ms. Nasiha has been working as a key member of the e-learning support team of MNU where she was actively involved in e-learning design and facilitation since she joined MNU in January 2011.

Patrick Alexander

Patrick Alexander is Professor of Education and Research Lead (Education) at Oxford Brookes University. He is also Chair of the Oxford Brookes Children and Young People Research Network.

Patrick is a social anthropologist specialising in education, childhood and youth. His research and teaching interests include the sociology of schooling, youth transitions and youth subcultures, gender, ethnography, and social theory. Patrick also researches knowledge production and professional learning in schools.

Patrick’s most recent research explores schooling in the UK and United States, with a focus on how young people imagine the future and how they are socialised to anticipate particular future outcomes through the process of schooling. He also researches youth-led critical pedagogies in the metaverse.

Email: palexander@brookes.ac.uk

Fathimath Shafeeqa

Dr Fathimath Shafeeqa is involved in a number of projects relating to environmental education. She is currently working as a Director for the Institute of Research and Development and as a part time lecturer in the Maldives National University and other colleges and has extensive experience in teaching environmental education.

She has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses and her focus is mainly on environmental education, curriculum development and education philosophy and sociology.

Shafeeqa also worked as the manager for Live & Learn Environmental Education Maldives, advocating and ensuring that awareness and education lead to a positive environmental attitude among the school children, tourist resort staff and community members.

Research interests include environmental education pedagogies, climate change and its impact on the Maldivian environment and how people perceive this phenomenon.

Email: fath.shafeeqa@gmail.com

Rachel Payne

Dr Rachel Payne works at Oxford Brookes University as Deputy Head of Education and Student Experience in the School of Education, Languages and Humanities (2023 – ongoing). She was the subject leader of the Secondary Art/Design PGCE from 2004-2012, and since 2006 leads the MA Education: Artist Teacher Practice.

Rachel passionately believes that communities of practice can have empowering impact for art and design teachers by elevating professional voices, experiences and status.

Research interests focus on emancipatory pedagogies in schools and higher education which lead to transformative artist teacher practices. She champions visual methodologies and arts-based research, both her own and others.

As a Past President for the National Society for Education in Art and Design and a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Art, Craft and Design in Education, Rachel lobbies the UK government for high quality accessible art, craft and design education for all.

Email: rpayne@brookes.ac.uk

Tim Jones

Tim Jones is Professor of Sustainable Urban Mobility at Oxford Brookes University, UK. His research focuses on how towns and cities can be planned and designed to support more sustainable ways of moving around such as walking, cycling and public transport.

Before becoming an academic some twenty years ago, Tim worked as a sustainable transport consultant, and before that, as an environmental education officer working with primary and secondary schools to educate about the importance of sustainable development.

Email: tjones@brookes.ac.uk