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Meet our training team
NCCPE Training Team
Director - Business and Strategy
Sophie is an experienced trainer and facilitator. A physicist by training, Sophie started her career at the Science Museum in London where her work included exhibition development and public programmes. She became a programme manager with Science Year, before joining the BBC, where she managed the creation and delivery of national learning campaigns.
NCCPE Training Associates
Jamie is an award-winning freelance communicator and engagement professional with ten years’ experience in the delivery and evaluation of quality engagement projects. Working across dozens of institutions and subject areas he has helped improve the reach, profile and impact of research engagement in almost every discipline. As a specialist in evaluation, Jamie provides consultancy services to charities and universities helping them to demonstrate their impact and understand their audiences and stakeholders. Jamie is also a science communicator and can often be found on TV, radio or stage making research accessible.
Kim Aumann has worked as a manager of third sector organizations, a community worker, parent support practitioner, trainer and supervisor. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Brighton where she has successfully forged creative links with different university partners to tackle issues of disadvantage and inequalities together. Kim has drawn on this experience to co-write journal articles and book chapters about partnership working from a community partner perspective. Kim continues to work with parents of children special educational needs, providing a consultancy and training service.
Helen Featherstone, PhD, is the Head of Public Engagement at the University of Bath, Public Engagement Unit. She works across the university supporting engaged research and creating the conditions for engaged research to flourish. The Public Engagement Unit’s work operates across four areas: Doing Public Engagement, Learning about Public Engagement, Celebrating Public Engagement and Leading on Public Engagement. Prior to this, Helen worked at the University of Exeter and has also been a post-doc researcher at UWE, Bristol looking at the publics' roles in public engagement. Helen continues to teach on the MSc Science Communication course at UWE.
Lewis Hou is a public and community engagement specialist who works across research, education, arts and culture and third sector. He is particularly interested in creative, interdisciplinary approaches that build equitable and meaningful relationships with diverse groups and challenges knowledge hierarchies. Based in Scotland, he runs the community organisation Science Ceilidh and has been involved in a five-year action research programme on Cultural Democracy. Originally training in neuroscience, Lewis is an experienced speaker, trainer and facilitator, and is currently a UK Creative Community Fellow and member of the Anti-Racist Educator collective too.
Suzanne is an experienced public engagement trainer and culture changer. Originally a teacher, she spent over twenty years working in museum learning gaining experience in management as well as developing training for fellow professionals. In 2008 she joined the University of Manchester’s Beacon for Public Engagement and worked on embedding public engagement across the University resulting in the award of a Gold Watermark. During her last ten years at Manchester she worked on a new social responsibility initiative which placed public engagement as a key priority. Suzanne regularly develops and delivers training workshops on public engagement and evaluation. She is a NCCPE Watermark Assessor and often facilitates engagement-related sessions for various organisations such as the UKRI and the Nuffield Foundation.
Penny is an experienced and qualified trainer, committed to public and community engagement, and the co-production of high quality, inclusive learning opportunities for community and professional development. Penny has many roles including Director of All the Small Things CiC, facilitator of 1000 Lives, a city-wide community network for volunteers and activists, community educator, development manager, and Senior Lecturer at Staffordshire University. She specialises in community development, volunteering, mentoring and participatory research. In her spare time she is an active volunteer/ charity trustee/ campaigner/ community artist.