The CELE Academic Team
Louis Harrison, Head of CELE
Louis' career in English language education began in 1988 in Turkey where he lectured in academic English at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir.
Since then he has taught in Italy, Sri Lanka and Hungary and at Oxford Brookes University (teacher), the University of Reading (teacher), the University of Bradford (senior lecturer), the University of Glasgow (EFL Director of Studies) and the University of Nottingham (Head of CELE).
Louis' expertise areas are English language teaching materials development and syllabus design.
Joanna Al-Youssef
Joanna has been teaching and researching in higher education contexts since 1996, supporting students at presessional, undergraduate and postgraduate levels at various UK universities and in the Middle East. Joanna joined the School of Education at the University of Nottingham in 2010.
Joanna has an MA in English Language Teaching from the University of Nottingham, and an EdD (Doctor of Education) from the University of Bath. Her main research interest is in the area of Internationalisation of Higher Education.
At the University of Nottingham, Joanna teaches on presessional, academic language and communications skills and foundation programmes, as well as supervising doctoral students at the School of Education. She is Module Convenor for Foundation for Engineering and Science, working closely with the Department of Engineering. She launched and taught on the PG Cert. International Student Advice and Support programme. She has also taught on the PGCE (Malaysia) programme, MA Teaching English for Academic Purposes (MA TEAP) and MA International Higher Education.
Catherine Beswick, Course Leader (Presessional)
Catherine has been teaching and supporting students in Higher Education for over 15 years. She joined the University of Nottingham in 2010, having previously taught and managed English and academic literacies programmes at a number of UK and overseas institutions.
Catherine has an MA in English Language Teaching and a Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (DELTA). She is an ILM qualified organisational coach and works with individuals as part of the UoN internal coach pool.
At the University of Nottingham, Catherine is Course Leader for presessional and also teaches on presessional and academic language and communications skills courses, as well as teaching on the Introduction to TEFL elective for undergraduate modern languages students. She has an interest in teacher education and teacher and staff development.
David Bowen
David has been teaching in Higher Education for over 25 years. He previously worked for the University of Gdansk, and the University of Skopje.
David has an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Durham.
At the University of Nottingham, David has taught modules in the Faculty of Engineering and the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies, and has worked with students from foundation to PhD level.
Olga Burakov
Olga has been teaching and supporting students in Higher Education in the UK and the US for over 15 years. She has previously worked at the University of Lincoln, Fordham University (USA), and New York University (USA).
Olga holds an MA and a PhD in English from New York University (USA), and the Cambridge Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (DELTA). She is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
At the University of Nottingham, Olga has taught on foundation and presessional academic skills modules and has worked with students from foundation to PhD levels.
Dave Button
Dave has been teaching English since 1993, with over 17 years’ experience in Higher Education in the UK. He previously worked for Nottingham Trent University and the University of Birmingham and has been at CELE since 2010.
Dave has an MA in English Language Teaching from Nottingham Trent University and a Cambridge Certificate and Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
At the University of Nottingham, Dave has worked on academic language and communications skills courses and presessional programmes, teaching students across a wide range of disciplines at undergraduate, masters and PhD level.
Alasdair Couch
Alasdair has been working at CELE since 2017. His career as an English teacher began in South Korea in 2008, where he taught in a variety of educational settings. He commenced teaching in higher education at Chonnam National University, Gwangju. Subsequently, he taught in the Middle East - in both Saudi Arabia and Ras Al-Khaimah in the UAE - before returning to the UK.
Alasdair is CELTA qualified and has an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Nottingham. His final research project was an ethnographic study focussed on Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom, with a specific focus on British summer schools. His other areas of interest are Second Language Acquisition, English Vocabulary: Learning and Teaching, and Language Learner Motivation. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Craig Coulson
Craig’s teaching career began back in 2004 at a language school in Osaka and then Tokyo, Japan, before entering into UK Higher Education in 2009. Since then, he has worked at a number of UK institutions and spent seven years teaching at a university in Kazakhstan. He joined CELE in 2019.
Craig’s teaching qualifications include the Cambridge CELTA, Delta and MA in Teaching English for Academic Purposes from the University of Nottingham. His MA dissertation explored the ways flipped learning can be used in an EAP context. In 2017, he won an award for the co-development of an online writing environment. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a committee member of the BALEAP TEL SIG.
His role at the University of Nottingham includes teaching on the presessional courses, course coordination, and materials development.
Ewan Dinwiddie
Ewan has been working in education since 2005. He studied physics with astrophysics at undergraduate level, before undertaking an MA in English for Academic Purposes at the University of Nottingham.
Ewan has also taught with University College London, Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan) and Nottingham Trent University.
At the University of Nottingham, Ewan has worked closely with students from the Schools of Engineering and Education, among others.
Angela Gillet
Angela has been teaching and supporting students in Higher Education for over 10 years. She previously worked as a teacher for the British Council in Thailand, Poland, Portugal, Italy, Hungary and Colombia.
Angela has a MEd in Educational Technology and English Language Teaching from the University of Manchester and a Cambridge Diploma in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language to Adults.
At the University of Nottingham, Angela teaches on Presessional EAP and academic language and communications skills courses and has worked closely with the School of Education in supporting their MA TESOL/TCSOL students.
Simon Gooch
Simon has been a teacher of English, teacher trainer and teacher of EAP for over 30 years and still rather enjoys it! He has worked with children, adults and teachers in Turkey, Hungary, Spain, Oman and several UK institutions of Higher Education, including Cardiff, Aston, Leicester and Lancaster universities.
He has also written and collaborated on the PEAP Engineering, PEAP Education and PEAP Business and Management courses. He now spends much of his teaching time on the ALACS programme focussing in particular on working with students in education, architecture and built environment and environmental sciences.
As well as curriculum and materials design, his other main area of interest is in teacher development and he has previously helped organise the CELE summer presessional tutor development sessions. He is a keen advocate of BALEAP and has given a number of practitioner-based presentations at BALEAP conferences and professional interest meetings.
John Hall
John has been teaching in Higher Education for 25 years. Before joining Nottingham in 2002, he worked as an English language tutor at Keele University. Prior to this, he worked for the British Council in Italy, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
At the University of Nottingham, John has worked as a course leader for both foundation and presessional programmes, and was closely involved in setting up the Ningbo, China campus. More recently he has been involved in designing and delivering academic language and literacy support for students from undergraduate to PhD level.
John has a PGCE in Teaching English Overseas from the University of Manchester and an MA TESOL from the Institute of Education in London.
Irina Hawker
Irina has over 20 years of teaching experience in EAP (UK Higher Education), EFL and CLIL at A Level in Romania. Since joining CELE in 2009, Irina has worked on presessional and academic language and communications skills courses, taught on the PGCE (Malaysia) programme and the MA TEAP, and provided research support to visiting scholars. Her contributions in CELE include materials development across a range of general and discipline specific EAP courses, course coordination, and coordination of curricular projects.
Irina has a PhD in CLIL (University of Nottingham), an MA in Research Methods for Education (University of Nottingham), an MEd in TESOL (Exeter University), and a BA in English Language and Literature (Romania). Irina is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK), and has Qualified Teacher Status (UK and Romania).
Irina’s scholarship focuses on learner strategies of accessing content through the medium of English; the role of reflection in academia; critical engagement and student voice; disciplinary variation in approaches to learning and curricular innovation. She also has a strong interest in enhancing student experience by enabling networking between CELE students and alumni.
Richard Lee
Richard has been supporting students to improve their academic skills in Higher Education for over 20 years in the UK and the UAE. He has previously worked for the University of Essex and the University of the United Arab Emirates.
Richard has an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Essex and a PGDip Education from the University of Nottingham. He is also a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Richard has worked extensively with the Schools of Education, Law, Veterinary Sciences, Biosciences and Engineering.
Sandra Leigh, Course Leader (Presessional)
Sandra has been teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) for over 15years, and she has worked in schools and higher education in the UAE, Lebanon and the UK. Sandra joined CELE in 2008, and has taught and led on presessional programmes and academic language and communications skills courses. Sandra has supported students at UG and PG levels.
Sandra is a member of the School of Education's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee, and is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Sandra was also on university’s Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment team.
Sandra has a Doctorate in Education (EdD), an MA English Language Teaching, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching EAP. Her teaching and research interests include effective feedback, curriculum & materials development and EDI as well as the socialisation experiences of international students and students from multilingual/bilingual backgrounds.
Shasha Li, Course Leader (Academic Language and Communication Skills)
Shasha has been teaching and supporting students in Higher Education in China and the UK for over 13 years. She has previously worked for Ocean University of China, Xi’an-Jiaotong Liverpool University, Communication University of China, and Nottingham Trent University.
Shasha has an MA in English Language Teaching from the University of Nottingham and a Cambridge Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
At the University of Nottingham, Shasha works closely with different faculties to ensure our courses are what you need in your subject area.
Klaus Mundt - Deputy Head of CELE
Klaus Mundt has been teaching in Higher Education since 2008. Before that, he was a strategic planner in education. He holds a German Diplom (equ. to MA) in Southeast Asian Studies with Translation, an MA in Applied Linguistics & English Language Teaching, a PGCert in Teaching English for Academic Purposes, and he is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE.
Klaus teaches EAP and PG Translation students, and he is actively involved in the design of teaching materials. He is the Deputy Head of CELE, and currently oversees CELE’s provision of credit-bearing courses. He is also a member of UoN Senate and of the School’s ESE committee. He has worked with the Academic Language and Communication Skills team for over ten years in teaching and materials development. He sees engaging support for students at the heart of a positive learning environment.
His research interests are machine translation in language education, cultural translation and translation pedagogy.
Claire Murby
Claire joined CELE in October 2008 and has now been teaching in Higher Education for 13 years. Prior to this, Claire worked for International House, Bangkok, teaching a range of ages and subjects. Furthermore, she taught Business English at various companies across Bangkok.
Claire’s teaching qualifications include an MA in Applied Linguistics, a PGT in English for Academic Purposes and the Cambridge CELTA.
At the University of Nottingham, Claire has taught on a range of presessional courses, along with the Introduction to TEFL elective for undergraduates of modern languages. Additionally, Claire is often involved in course coordination and materials development.
Ilari Pulkkinen
Ilari has been teaching since 1999. He spent a few years teaching English for Specific Purposes (such as business English) in Hungary, Poland and Finland, before discovering English for Academic Purposes (EAP).
He has been working at CELE as a Tutor in EAP since 2004 – this includes a few years at the University’s campus in Ningbo, China (2004-2008).
During his many years with CELE, Ilari has worked on various courses/programmes (for example presessional and foundation) in different roles (Course Leader, Module Convenor, Course Coordinator and Course Tutor).
John Rabone
John has been teaching and supporting students in Higher Education over 30 years. He has a BA (Hons., Exeter) in English Language and Literature and an MSc (Aston) in Teaching English for Specific Purposes. He has previously taught for the University of Nevada and the University of Tokyo.
At the University of Nottingham, John has worked closely with the Faculty of Engineering, and with the Schools of Law, Pharmacy and Health Sciences, among others.
Nick Rea, digital lead
Nick has been teaching since 1994 in a variety of roles and countries. His career began in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, first at an English language school before leading the English language provision at an international school. After 11 years in Cambodia he moved into Higher Education at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Dubai where he spent 12 years, starting as an EAP teacher before rising to head of the general studies department. He returned to the UK and after two spells teaching EAP at Sheffield University he started work at the University of Nottingham in 2019, first as an education technology consultant before moving to CELE.
Nick’s qualifications include an MA TEFL, an MEd Education Technology, Diploma in TESOL, and the Cambridge CELTA. He is also a certified Cinema 4d instructor as well as an intercultural intelligence workshop facilitator and personality dimensions workshop facilitator. His research interests include automated feedback of student work, technology adoption, and culture in education.
Patience Sibanda
Patience has been supporting students with academic skills in Higher Education for over eight years. He has previously worked as a secondary school teacher and ESOL teacher in the Further Education sector and worked at De Montfort University in Leicester.
Patience has an MA in Educational Studies (University of Leicester), and a BA in Education degree (University of Zimbabwe). He also holds two PGCE certificates in education research (University of Nottingham) and English (secondary) (Nottingham Trent University).
At the University of Nottingham, Patience teaches on the foundation, presessional EAP and Academic Language and Communications Skills programmes. He supports students from various departments, at varying levels.
Clare Wilson
Clare has been teaching and supporting students in both schools (in the UK) and in higher education settings for nearly 20 years. Before changing career paths to focus on teaching EFL/ESP/ESOL/EAP (including teaching in Auckland, NZ), she previously taught students aged 14-19 at a college in Leicestershire.
Clare holds qualifications including an MA English Language Teaching from Nottingham Trent University, a Trinity CertTESOL and is currently working towards the HEA Senior Fellowship Award.
During her 14 years at CELE, Clare has taught on many courses (for example, presessional, foundation, electives and specialised courses) and has worked in a variety of roles (for example module convenor, course coordinator and presessional admissions student liaison officer). She has also contributed towards the university community by sitting on a number of boards include the Immigration Compliance Group and the Qualifications Review Group.