Rebecca is the Director of Business Engagement at Imperial Consultants, a wholly owned company of Imperial College London which facilitates the engagement of academics as consultants to external organisations. She has over 20 years’ experience of commercial roles within both the private sector and academia and has a Masters in Chemistry with German from UMIST and a PhD in chemistry from the University of Southampton. Rebecca and the Business Engagement Team provide guidance on how to consult and how consultancy can support an academic career

Bernie joined the Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre in 2011 and has played a key role in the administration of PFDC courses, including the Springboard Programme and Taking Charge of your Career Programmes. An excellent communicator with years of administrative experience, Bernie’s expertise is in presentation and time-management, as well as being a Springboard Women’s Development Programme trainer, Bernie is committed to working on delivering high quality training to postdocs. Bernie also works as a project worker helping young people acquire work related and independent living skills.

After completing her degree in Philosophy, Caroline started her career in human resources for a telecommunications engineering company. She has 10 years of experience training and facilitating experts in their field. Over the last six years she has worked in Knowledge Management for R&D projects in the AZ owned biotechnology company, MedImmune. Prior to this Caroline delivered transferable skills courses for postgraduates, tutoring on the UK GRAD programme and Vitae’s Leadership in Action Caroline now works for herself, is in a business partnership, Catalyst, and also trains in team effectiveness, communication, project management and innovation skills. Caroline builds on existing skills and experience to bring out the full potential of individuals and teams.

Dr Madelaine Chapman joined Imperial College in summer 2018 and is the careers contact for the Chemistry, Mathematics and Materials departments. Before joining Imperial, Madelaine worked at the University of Cambridge as a postdoc careers adviser and at the LSE as the PhD and research staff careers consultant. Madelaine has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh and worked in science publishing before specializing in careers.

Katie has over 10 years of experience working in transferable skills training and career coaching for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. She offers a broad portfolio of workshops and specialises particularly in communication and interview preparation. Her clients include universities and research groups across the UK and Europe.

Liz Elvidge is the Head of the Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre at Imperial College London. She is responsible for the support and development of the College's 2,400 postdocs and fellows. The Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre was the first of its kind in the UK to provide bespoke tailored support to researchers and postdocs.

Liz has worked in Higher Education for the whole of her career. She has a PhD in Glacial Geomorphology and Geomorphology and postdoc work in magnetostratography. She first became interested in the training and development of researchers during her first postdoc. Since then she has worked at Heriot Watt University, Head of Academic Staff Development at Cambridge University and has been at Imperial for nearly 10 years. In 2015 she was awarded the Dame Julia Higgins Medal for ‘outstanding support for female early career researchers and academics’.

In 2017 she co-authored a book, "What every postdoc needs to know" (Elvidge EM; Spencely, C; Williams, EJ. World Scientific.) It is a practical workbook aimed at final year PhD students and postdocs. Liz et al have been commissioned to write a second book ‘What every woman needs to know to progress in Higher Education’

Karen is a Consultant within the Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre at Imperial. She gained her PhD in Structural Biology from the University of York, before joining a research institute in Montreal, Canada.  In 2011 she returned to the UK to take a postdoc position at the University of Warwick.  

Whilst carrying out her research into antimicrobials, Karen set up her departmental reps community and was an active member of several committees; particularly during their successful Athena Swan application. In addition, she established a thriving Woman in Science series of events which highlighted the many different career options that are available to researchers.  

Karen is passionate about helping postdocs reach their full potential and to achieve this, she provides a range of training and support to postdocs across Imperial and is actively involved with the Postdoc Reps Network.

David is a Research Biologist specialising in the ecology of soil invertebrates. After several postdoc contracts at the Natural History Museum and overseas and as a Research Associate in the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial, David now works at the Natural History Museum. Over the last twelve years David has also been teaching a range of transferable skills to PhD students, postdocs and university staff on courses organised by Vitae (funded by Research Councils UK) and the British Council.

Dr Julie King
Julie is the Director of the Centre for Academic English.  Previously, she taught academic English at Durham University, where she studied for her MA and PhD in Linguistics, and then she worked at the University of Nottingham, becoming the Director of the Centre for English Language Education and developing an online Master’s degree in teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP).  Recently, she was the lead advisor for Epigeum in the production of an online English for Academic Studies programme for international postgraduate students. Her teaching at Imperial is mainly with PhD students and postdocs, with a focus on advanced academic grammar and writing.  She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Gareth Mitchell is a broadcast journalism lecturer on the MSc Science Communication at Imperial. Outside Imperial College, Gareth presents the BBC’s weekly technology radio programme Click (formerly Digital Planet). He also regularly hosts Inside Science on BBC Radio 4. Here in the college, Gareth produces and presents the monthly Imperial College podcast. Gareth’s main teaching interests are in the theory and practice of radio - everything from recording, scripting and editing to the academic study of semiotics and narrative structures in drama and factual audio. And, as an event host and moderator, Gareth has worked around the world with the likes of the European Commission, OECD, World Economic Forum, the New Cities Foundation and many others. Gareth started out as an Imperial electrical engineering graduate twenty-five years ago. 

Robin is a Senior Teacher of English for Academic Purposes and has been at Imperial since 2006. Prior to this, he developed and taught English for Specific Purposes programmes at Bordeaux Segalen University (Medicine and Life Sciences), at the Bordeaux Kedge Business School, and at the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Industry. At Imperial’s Centre for Academic English, Robin is responsible for coordinating, designing and delivering the Centre’s PhD STEMM writing courses, in addition to developing and teaching research publication workshops for postdoctoral researchers and academic staff. He also provides individual support in the form of writing consultations.

Andrew develops and teaches a range of courses and workshops focusing on science research writing for students and academic staff at Imperial. He joined Imperial’s Centre for Academic English in 2016 after working as an English for Academic Purposes teacher at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Stewart Theobald trained and worked as a professional actor before training as a voice coach. Stewart formed Talking Shop Training Ltd in 1992 and currently works with fifteen Universities and various businesses in the public and private sector. Over the past seventeen years, Stewart has coached actors, broadcasters, business executives, barristers, university lecturers and politicians.

Dr Emma Williams works illuminating a wider career choice for early career researchers. With over 25+ years in the Higher Education sector, she has worked worldwide with PhD students, postdocs and fellows. Enterprise skills are key enabler here and she has developed a suite of courses introducing entrepreneurial concepts for both Imperial College and the University of Oxford. She is a qualified coach, Springboard Women’s Development Programme trainer and is Belbin team roles accredited reflecting her passions for development, equality of opportunity and building peoples understanding of each other. Her development business, founded in 2009, draws on her experiences as a research physicist and co-head of Academic Staff Development at the University of Cambridge.