£42,700
Centre for Research in Engineering and Materials Education
Funded Research Projects
The following are current funded research projects taking place within the research centre:
‘AI in Academia’: An audit of educational developers’ use of, and attitude towards, Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher and further educationPrincipal Investigator: Rehan SHAH Co-investigator(s): Matthew Cole (Hartpury) and Noleen Chikowore (Leeds) Funding source: Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) Start: 01-05-2025 / End: 31-08-2026 Amount: £1,000 The rise of Generative AI has led some institutions to provide student guidance on appropriate use, while a small number of studies have explored student perceptions of AI in Higher Education. However, there is limited research on AI usage and perceptions among educational developers. While some larger universities have started offering general AI guidance to their staff, a gap remains in understanding how educational developers, especially from small and specialist institutions, currently engage with AI. This project aims to audit educational developers across 3 UK institutions to shape future AI guidance and contribute to ongoing research, including the 2024 SEDA-funded study on multimodal learning and AI. By leveraging a diverse team across multiple institutions, the project will provide a broad, interdisciplinary perspective. Research questions will involve examining how AI is currently used in practice by educational developers, what their attitudes towards AI integration in education are and what the existing gaps in their knowledge, competence, and confidence of AI use are. The study will employ a multi-phase, iterative approach to review literature to scope AI applications in educational development, survey staff to audit AI usage across the three institutions and conduct focus groups to gather qualitative insights on their attitudes and behaviours. The output resources will benefit educational developers across HE and FE sectors and serve as a valuable platform for the development of guidance for learner developers’ AI use in the future. ** |
Who experiences experiential learning? Enhancing inclusion in experiential educationPrincipal Investigator: David Geiringer Co-investigator(s): Rehan SHAH, Aisha Abuelmaatti, Alison Brunt, Leslie James, Patrick McGurk, Lisa Diane Morrison, Kanishka Ratnayake, Lindsey Shirah, Karen Watton, Louis Platman (The Museum of the Home), Sadiya Ahmed (Everyday Muslim Project) and Anna Maguire (UCL East) Funding source: QMUL President and Principal's Fund for Educational Excellence Start: 01-08-2025 / End: 31-07-2026 Amount: £5,000 Experiential learning has become a major agenda in higher education over the last five years: it is either embedded, or currently being embedded, in almost all programmes across QMUL in line with the Active Curriculum for Excellence approach (ACE), the Student Experience Enabling Plan and the new QMUL Employability and Skills Framework. The benefits of experiential learning have been established for some time (Kolb 1984; Jonathon and Laik 2024) and the field has been heavily theorised (Bhajantri et al. 2016), but there remain multiple approaches to the design and delivery of such programmes in practice at QMUL and beyond. Moreover, we continue to know very little about the (in many cases hidden) barriers to participation in experiential learning and attendant issues of inclusion. Through student feedback, the project team have some knowledge of barriers relating to finances (e.g. associated travel costs – see below) time (e.g. those with employment or caring responsibilities) and culture (e.g. incompatibility with religious observations, anxieties and exclusions based on ‘social capital’). This project attempts to (i) generate data which surfaces these and other unknown barriers and issues (ii) develop resources that support the design and delivery of inclusive experiential education (iii) create a community of practice across QMUL and its partners which establishes us as a sector-leader in inclusive experiential learning. This project addresses the barriers, exclusions and inequities that students and educators experience in experiential learning. ** |
Levelling Up Maths for Engineering ProgrammePrincipal Investigator: Rehan SHAH Co-investigator(s): and Holly BARRETT Funding source: London Mathematical Society, Heilbronn Institute of Mathematical Research and Dr. Tony Hill Start: 04-02-2025 / End: 02-02-2026 Amount: £4,500 The new Levelling Up Maths for Engineering programme launched in SEMS, supported by the Institute of Mathematics and the Royal Academy of Engineering follows on from its parallel counterpart, the Levelling Up Mathematics programme (supported by the London Mathematical Society) which has already been running successfully for two years within the Queen Mary School of Mathematical Sciences. The programme aims at raising awareness of engineering as a viable STEM-based career, by improving the mathematics capabilities of those interested in engineering by helping them appreciate the relevance of mathematics in practical engineering situations. It particularly focuses on raising the aspirations of A-level mathematics pupils in years 12 and 13 from underrepresented backgrounds, particularly female students, aligning with the School of Engineering's EDI priorities, to study engineering, or a related STEM discipline, at university. This will be achieved through an integrated programme of dedicated tutoring support provided by QMUL SEMS undergraduate students over a 15-month period with up to 22 tutorial sessions. The undergraduate tutors provide direct support and encouragement to a small group of pupils, and with their university departments, show that mathematics and engineering can be studied in an inclusive and welcoming environment. This can then help such students with navigating the university application process, with the aim of matching increased aspirations with increased attainment and confidence.** |
Empowering Collaborative Learning: Breaking Barriers and Enhancing Equity in STEM EducationPrincipal Investigator: Folashade AKINMOLAYAN TAIWO Funding source: Cornell-QMUL Global Strategic Collaboration Award Start: 02-02-2025 / End: 30-01-2026 Amount: £8,000 Collaborative learning environments (CLE) are vital for aligning education with the demands of the modern world. In these settings, students work together in groups to achieve shared learning goals, fostering critical thinking, peer learning, and social skills. Yet, realizing the benefits of CLEs can be challenging due to numerous obstacles faced by students and instructors. Thus, there is a pressing need for a tool that can effectively support students and instructors. This project will investigate students’ experiences working in CLEs to identify barriers and develop targeted interventions that enhance student experience and graduate employability.** |
Inclusive Commonwealth Learning for Interdisciplinary Development and Education for Sustainability (INCLIDES)Principal Investigator: Rehan SHAH Co-investigator(s): Anne Preston (UCL), Praveen Kumar (TISS) and Neha Christie (TISS) Funding source: Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) Start: 04-11-2024 / End: 31-10-2025 Amount: £2,500 This cross-institutional project featuring three ACU member universities aims to use inclusive pedagogy to enhance HE educators' understanding of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in interdisciplinary learning curricula. The project will develop a joint toolkit on practice-based research to evaluate the role and quality of SDGs in postgraduate education. The interdisciplinary approach will feature collaborations with academic staff across the fields of Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy (SHAPE) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in both countries. ESD is a priority in curriculum development in both India and the UK, with both countries having shared interests in innovating and integrating within interdisciplinary teaching, despite differences in how it is mandated. A common gap exists in understanding the role of SHAPE subjects and how they contribute to ESD, particularly in areas like ecology and climate change. While STEM subjects have curricula addressing climate action and sustainable cities, students often struggle with topics like gender equality and reduced inequalities. This project will employ inclusive pedagogical methodologies to design culturally responsive approaches, identifying and nurturing educators' cultural strengths to promote student learning through curriculum innovation. This co-creational effort (also featuring student researchers) aims to empower both educators and students to find personal connections to traditionally thought to be inaccessible areas within their disciplines.** |
Nonlinear mechanics of rods subject to surface constraintsPrincipal Investigator: Rehan SHAH Funding source: Quaterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics Fund (QJMAM) Start: 16-10-2024 / End: 16-10-2025 Amount: £1,700 Slender, elastic rod-like structures on or inside constrained rigid surfaces are prevalent in a wide range of engineering (drill strings in borewells, pipelines under the seabed, ocean cables), medical (stents in angioplasty of arteries), biological (DNA toroidal condensates, bacterial flagella), electronic (carbon nanotubes) and robotic (soft robots for in-pipe inspection) applications. This project seeks to employ a comprehensive variational theory of elastic two-strand braids to investigate the post-buckling behaviour of elastic rods lying on rigid tubular surfaces. Methods comprising the calculus of variations and Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics are utilised to procure more general types of solutions to various nonlinear boundary value problems, using both analytical and numerical approaches. Journal Paper Publications: Shah R and van der Heijden GHM (2024). Buckling and lift-off of a heavy rod compressed into a cylinder. Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids, Elsevier vol. 182, 105464-105464. Shah R and van der Heijden GHM (2023). Static friction models for a rod deforming on a cylinder. Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids, Elsevier vol. 173, 105224-105224.** |
EduMark AI: AI-Driven Grading and Personalised Student Feedback to Save Educator TimePrincipal Investigator: Deepshikha DEEPSHIKHA Co-investigator(s): Li WANG, Xinru DENG, Giuseppe VIOLA and Mouna CHETEHOUNA Funding source: QMUL President and Principal's Fund for Educational Excellence Start: 01-08-2024 / End: 31-08-2025 This project addresses the pressing need for efficiency and consistency in grading and feedback processes at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), aligning with QMUL's Strategy 2030 for digital transformation and educational excellence. EduMark AI seeks to integrate artificial intelligence to streamline grading tasks and enhance the quality of feedback for students, aiming to reduce assessment time by 50%. Through collaboration with key QMUL stakeholders, the project will evaluate three AI systems (e.g., ChatGPT, Google AI Gemini, and Graide) on their effectiveness in grading and feedback quality. The project will assess AI's impact on educator workload and student satisfaction by conducting a controlled comparison with traditional grading methods. This initiative contributes to the broader QMUL goal of adaptive, personalised education. It aims to establish best practices for scalable AI integration across disciplines, benefiting faculty, students, and QMUL's academic community. |
SustainAbility in the QMUL curriculumPrincipal Investigator: Ishani Chandrasekara Co-investigator(s): Rehan SHAH, Sayed Elhoushy, Zoe Sturgess , Stephanie Fuller and David Whyte Funding source: QMUL President and Principal's Fund for Educational Excellence Start: 01-08-2024 / End: 31-08-2025 Amount: £20,000 This project addresses sustainability, the most urgent global issue facing the world today, which is also a key strategic priority for Queen Mary’s 2030 Strategy. Its primary aim is to enhance the Queen Mary curriculum through establishing a platform for discussions and collaborative learning on sustainability. This space will enable Queen Mary staff, students, and the East London community to participate in and benefit from a non-credit sustainability course. The focus is on developing an innovative pedagogical approach to share existing knowledge and skills within the university in order to develop sustainability awareness, knowledge, and skills. The course, open to all staff and students, will be co-created with students and aligned with the development of Queen Mary Graduate Attributes and employability skills. Elements of the course would also be open to the local community.** |