Academic Rep of the Year Awards

Overall Winner: Martin Lopez Howe

Course Rep, History, Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences

Martin has “been an immensely successful point of contact between staff and students, making their academic lives livelier.”

Through his time and energy, Martin has “fundamentally changed the relationship between the students and the Department of History”.

Runner-Ups and Winner of Faculty Awards

Faculty of Arts and Humanities: Freya Proudman

Lead Department Rep, School of Slavonic and East European Studies

Freya has been nominated for her tireless and selfless efforts in organising the SSEES Society’s humanitarian aid response to the war in Ukraine. She has worked 15-hour days and organised truckloads of donations to Ukrainian refugees. She was the only student representative of a SSEES delegation at a meeting with the Provost to discuss the UCL response to the war in Ukraine. She has also been incredibly proactive as lead representative on her SSCC meetings

Through her commitment and dedication “the sense of student community at SSEES has never been so strong.”

Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment: Malgorzata Rutkowska

Lead Department Rep, Bartlett School of Architecture

To capture a wide range of student views, Malgo set up a dinner party that any student could attend to discuss the changes they wanted to see. These suggestions fed directly into the next SSCC meeting and actions were implemented as a result. The judges were impressed at the variety of engagement approaches used by Malgo and her commitment to improving the student experience.

Malgo was described as going “above and beyond to ensure all students are represented and that changes are made.

Faculty of Brain Sciences: Heather Sampson

Faculty Rep, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Heather has been dedicated in her role as a Faculty Rep and has worked hard to ensure that students are represented in decision making. She has implemented several positive changes for students such as: arranging a faculty PGT party, ensuring the new AssessmentUCL Project allowed for testing prior to formative assessments and confirming that students can claim back travel expenses from their projects. Heather has consistently collected student feedback and is passionate about representing students. The judges felt that she was actioning relevant issues that made a difference to students, in a variety of ways.

Faculty of Engineering Sciences: Andrea Franchini

Faculty Rep, Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

Andrea has been nominated for his commitment to improving the postgraduate research student experience in the Faculty of Engineering Sciences. To combat feelings of isolation often felt by research students, Andrea organised multiple social events and ran the #KnowYourPGRrep campaign. Andrea has also worked with department PGR tutors to prepare a faculty wide survey to monitor whether PhD students are satisfied with their supervision and to identify critical cases. The judges admired Andrea’s initiative and how much he cares for the research student community.

Institute of Education: Molly Edwards and Harriet Israel [co-winners]

Lead Department Reps, Education, Practice and Society and Psychology and Human Development

Following student feedback, Molly and Harriet initiated a pronouns badges project and are working hard to create content to explain how to use them. “Molly has worked well beyond the requirements of the rep role,” especially when chairing a difficult staff-student panel on the UCU strikes. Harriet has worked to enhance the sense of community among reps by establishing termly meetings between Lead Department Reps and Course Reps – improving rep engagement.

“Molly and Harriet are two students who are creating a legacy that the upcoming student reps can follow up on.”

Faculty of Laws

Laura Beaumont (Course Rep), Angel Foster (Course Rep), Angela Brown (Course Rep), Charlotte Choy (Faculty Rep), Laws

These four reps are driven and enthusiastic in their work representing over 700 students. They have worked constructively with the faculty to follow up on feedback from students by managing a very busy Unitu platform. In Term 2 they helped implement changes to ensure the combination of asynchronous and synchronous teaching replicated lectures previously delivered in-person.

These reps are consistently “going above and beyond to propose ideas to support their cohorts.

Faculty of Life Sciences: Azure H Loaws

Course Rep, Division of Biosciences

Azure is highly respected and has been proactive in his role as a Course Rep to get a range of feedback from his peers, eloquently representing them at his SSCC meetings. He works with staff individually to share new ideas that ultimately improve the student experience. Azure has taken the lead on numerous events and initiatives, such as the Year 1 party, playing a key role in its success.

“Azure has practiced and encouraged inclusiveness so that no student voice is left unheard.”

Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences: Qasim Afghan

Lead Department Rep, Space and Climate Physics

Qasim has demonstrated sustained engagement with Academic Reps and students in his department. Qasim organises coffee mornings prior to SSCCs so he can effectively gather feedback from students. By running a survey and understanding demand for the service, he has made a trial-run of transportation to the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) possible. Qasim is also working to establish societies at MSSL and re-build a sense of community there after a long period of remote working.

Qasim’s hard work has made “extraordinary differences” to the department.

Faculty of Medical Sciences: Anna-Dimitra Kataki

Research Student Rep, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science

Across each campus, Anna worked with staff to solve problems and remove obstacles students were facing. She is passionate about improving the sense of community amongst PGR students. Anna played a key role in running and organising the Annual Divisional Student Research Symposium, attended by over 500 people, and proactively worked to engage PGR students in the event.

Nominated for her "energy, enthusiasm and willingness to work with both staff and students to improve the education experience," Anna has worked hard to represent PGR students across all three of the Division’s campuses.

Faculty of Population Health Sciences: Whitney Wells

Lead Department Rep, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care

Whitney has been an exemplary Course Rep on the MSc Social Epidemiology course and has also served as Lead Department Rep for the Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare. She has proactively worked with both staff and students throughout the year. She has set up various student led initiatives such as social media training and a workshop on misuses of epidemiology. The judges were particularly impressed by the Changemakers project she led on improving the inclusivity and decolonising the curriculum on the MSc Social Epidemiology course.