Campus Talks: Why being a queer researcher ‘means speaking truth to power’

A behaviour change expert explains what is required to shift a whole campus community towards more environmentally sustainable habits.  --- To reach net zero, institutions need to shift the behaviour of their whole campus community towards reducing their carbon footprint and making greener daily choices. This means changing long established habits among thousands of diverse students and staff. How can universities do this without becoming too dictatorial? We asked behaviour change expert Esther Papies, a professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands, to explain what drives successful behaviour change and therefore what strategies universities need to employ to reduce their overall emissions and create greener campuses. Esther’s research examines the social and psychological processes in the transition to healthier, more sustainable and more equitable choices, particularly relating to diet. She has published extensively on the motivations and barriers for reducing meat and dairy intake, the motivation for climate action among privileged individuals and emotional experiences relating to climate change. She provides a clear break down of what is needed to support long term behaviour change in favour of more sustainable lifestyles and shares advice on how to overcome inevitable resistance to altering long held behavioural norms such as meat eating and driving cars.

How can universities develop sophisticated systems for data sharing and analysis that can guide communications and student services? Alain Pompilus was tasked with putting such a system in place and shares lessons from the experience - - - Universities hold a huge amount of data, with information collected at each stage of a student’s journey. The challenge lies in how to make best use of this data to support insights that can shape university services and communications. Alain Pompilus, associate vice-president for constituent knowledge and insights at the University of Florida, was bought in to address this challenge and create more effective market research efforts in order to better understand and engage key groups such as prospective students and parents, current students and alumni. His work focuses on using research, data, and strategic analysis to deepen the university’s understanding of its target audiences and strengthen how it responds to the needs and expectations of these different communities. Here, he discusses this work, what has been learnt so far and how he has started to build a more joined-up approach to developing and sharing insights across a huge and decentralised organisation like the University of Florida. Thanks to the University of Florida for sponsoring this episode.  

The challenges of being an LGBTQ+ researcher in the US have multiplied since Donald Trump returned to the presidency. Funding cuts, closures of LGBTQ+ resource centres on campus, attacks on trans rights and backtracks on Pride Month celebrations have all harmed not only scholars’ crucial work, but also their ability to support the next generation of queer academics. A New York Times data analysis estimated that $800 million (£596 million) worth of research into the health of LGBTQ people had been pulled as a result of the administration’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. One of the LGBTQ+ scientists affected was Lisa Diamond, a renowned researcher of women’s sexuality who lost her own NIH grant in the wake of the sweeping funding cuts. Diamond is distinguished professor in psychology and ethnic, gender and disability studies at the University of Utah. She has a PhD in human development from Cornell and is the author of the groundbreaking, award-winning book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire. In this interview, she talks about the heartbreak, trauma and chaos that the wave of grant terminations brought about. She explains how her experience under the current administration has led her to rethink her role as an LGBTQ+ scientist, how data collection is its own form of resistance, and how she now finds herself giving her students that same kind of cautious career advice she received back in the late 1990s. For her, 2025 was a turning point for LGBTQ+ health research. And in November, she and co-principal investigator Scout, a trans researcher from the LGBTQIA+ Cancer Network, began a survey of the LGBTQ+ community that has grown into an oral history project. For more advice and insight into supporting the LGBTQ+ community in higher education, read our Pride Month spotlight guide on Campus. 

We find out how one US institution has led the way in embedding AI across all its majors and what has been learnt in the process --- Many universities are now racing to embed AI literacy across their curricula and equip students with knowledge that may prove critical to future careers. But the University of Florida had embarked on this mission years before large language models exploded into everyone’s consciousness with the arrival of ChatGPT. In this episode of Campus Talks, we speak to Hans van Oostrom, director of the University of Florida’s AI2 Center, which supports the university’s AI initiatives across teaching and research, including the university-wide Undergraduate Certificate in AI Fundamentals and Applications. We discuss what ‘AI across the curriculum’ means in practice, how the University of Florida has built AI expertise across all its academic departments, what drives AI resistance and how to balance AI use against the other foundational skills that students need to develop. For more advice and insight on building AI literacy from higher education experts all over the world, head to our latest spotlight guide: Boosting AI literacy across your institution.  

What purpose does, or should, assessment serve? How can educators shift the focus of assessment towards feedback? Who is really driving higher education’s unhelpful obsession with grades? And how does GenAI affect all this? In this episode of Campus Talks, we explore all these questions and more with David Boud, Deakin distinguished professor at Deakin University and a leading scholar on assessment and feedback. David is the foundation director of Deakin’s Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology Sydney. He has been a pioneer in learning-centred approaches to assessment and is one of the most highly cited academics in the world on teaching, learning and assessment in higher and professional education with dozens of books bearing his name, including The Impact of Feedback in Higher Education (2019) and Assessment for Inclusion in Higher Education (2022). We discuss what constitutes good feedback, strategies for engaging students in the feedback process, how to design assessments that centre feedback and learning and where universities have been going wrong on assessment and grading.

Effective graduate supervision depends on a suite of interpersonal, technical and disciplinary skills, but many scholars enter into this complex, years-long role with only a small toolkit left over from their own journey. When a good supervision experience brings enrichment to supervisor and supervisee, as well as completion cache for both, and poor supervision can be destructive, this is one area of academia that should not be left to chance or assumptions. Especially not when the capabilities required can be learned. Institutions, as well as students and established scholars, have much to gain when universities develop communities and support structures to ensure that skills such as planning, communication, judgement and cultural awareness are embedded across the university. To find out more, we speak to Katerina Standish, an advocate for professional development around graduate supervision and author of The Graduate Supervisors Handbook: Practical Strategies for Graduate Pedagogy and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026). Katerina is a professor of global and international studies, interim dean of the Faculty of Indigenous Studies, Social Sciences, and Humanities, and vice-provost academic at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. Having supervised 26 PhD candidates and many master’s students to completion, her postgraduate teaching and supervision background draws on knowledge of Western and Indigenous research frameworks, and she is a certified conflict coach. This conversation is packed with practical advice about building foundational skills and where established scholars can look to advance their own practice. And for more advice on research supervision that supports and inspires, check out our latest spotlight guide.

Disabled students make up the biggest minority group in US and UK higher education, accounting for about a fifth of undergraduates in both countries. While efforts to improve access to higher education for disabled students have contributed to increased enrolment, people with disabilities are still less likely than their counterparts to enter college, to feel at home in higher education settings and to secure a degree. And research suggests that many do not to disclose their disabilities once enrolled within an institution, which limits the support available to them. So this week, we speak to a US researcher who has dedicated the last decade to studying the experiences of disabled students in higher education and the barriers to full access and inclusion for all. Katherine Aquino is a social scientist and educational researcher who currently serves as the executive director for research training and development in the School of Graduate Studies at Rutgers University. Her research examines the complexity of disability in the postsecondary setting and her most recent book, The New Accessibility in Higher Education: Disrupting the System for an Inclusive Future, co-authored with Adam Lalor was published by Oxford University Press last year. Katherine explains why existing efforts to improve access and inclusion have so often fallen short of their ambitions, why a shift in mindset is needed for systemic change to take hold and how individuals have the power to drive big change For more advice and insight on improving accessibility for all in university teaching, head to our spotlight guide: Make learning accessible to all in higher education.

Learn about the journey from academic researcher to entrepreneur and what it takes to launch a successful spin out company. Academics are specialists in their disciplines and research areas but very few have any expertise in running a business. So, while their discoveries may hold commercial potential, it is rarely a simple or easy process translating this knowledge into a saleable product or service. To demystify the process of research commercialisation, on this episode we hear from a US-based biomedical researcher who has launched and grown five spin-out companies over the last 25 years. Ashutosh Chilkoti is the Alan L. Kaganov Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University and the brains behind companies including PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals, Sentilus and Insolere Bio. He runs the Chilkoti research group and has driven a number of initiatives at Duke designed to support entrepreneurship among students and staff. As well as describing his own varied start-up experiences, he breaks down the process of developing a research finding into a business and offers insight on what investors look for and how institutions can best support their academics efforts in commercialisation. For anyone interested in commercialisation and enterprise, this conversation offers practical takeaways and useful insights to guide your decision-making. And for more advice on this process, check out our latest spotlight: A step-by-step guide to commercialising your research.

The relationship between academic staff and their professional services colleagues is key to delivering on universities’ goals of high-quality student experience and knowledge creation. Today, it’s more strategic alliance than traditional hierarchy, with increasing recognition that skills such as teaching practice are as crucial as subject knowledge, but tensions and challenges remain. This is despite the fact that professional services underpin all university functions, from education practice to careers services, lab management, estates, admissions and student well-being. One issue is that professional services staff don’t always have clear pathways to promotion and progression, which can perpetuate perception of division. So, this Campus Talks episode aims to answer questions such as: how deep is the divide between academic and professional services staff? Does the sector do enough to support career pathways for staff who don’t fit the neat progression of traditional academia? And how can universities do more to ensure that the breadth and depth of professional services expertise are not overlooked? We talk to Eleanor Hodgson, a senior educator developer and director of the ASPIRE Professional Recognition Pathway at the University of Exeter. With a PhD in French, Hodgson has held both academic and professional services roles, at Next Steps South West and Exeter’s Business School, before taking on her current position in 2021. She explains how her team collaborates with academics to enhance teaching and develop expertise such as AI literacy and inclusive pedagogy, and with other professional services teams across the university. She lays out why universities should draw in the depth of expertise across the university at all stages of strategy, policy and programme development. And she offers careers advice for graduates looking for alternatives to the traditional academic pathway. For more insight on related topics, check out the latest Campus spotlight guide on connecting the dots between academic and professional services staff.

STEM study and research are responsible for much of humanity’s most transformative knowledge and technology. Discoveries and products that emerge from STEM will continue to define how we live now and in the future. So, it should concern everyone that STEM fields are still overwhelmingly male dominated. And it’s not just women who are underrepresented, this also applies to minority ethnic groups. Women make up just 16.9 per cent of the 6.4 million people working in engineering and technology in the UK - compared to 56 per cent in other occupations. While minority ethnic groups make up just 14 per cent of the workforce, according to EngineeringUK’s 2025 workforce report. On this week’s podcast, in homage to International Woman’s Day, we speak to an academic who has built a successful career as a woman in the male dominated field of chemical engineering, to find out how being an outlier shaped her approach to her career and what she thinks needs to change to diversify her discipline. Raffaella Ocone became the first female professor of chemical engineering in Scotland – second in the UK – when she was appointed to the post at Heriot-Watt University in 1999. She is currently serving as president of the Institute of Chemical Engineering, marking the organisation’s first female president and CEO partnership. She is also a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institution of Chemical Engineers, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2007 she was appointed Cavaliere of the Italian Republic and in 2019 in the Queen’s New Year Honours she was appointed Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to engineering. But it all started for Raffaella in a small village, Morcone, in the hills of Campania in Southern Italy where, as she explains, few people backed her chances of becoming a professional engineer. Listen on to hear how she proved them wrong. For more advice and insight on how universities and academics can support efforts to get more women and other underrepresented groups into STEM, check out our spotlight guide: Opening doors to greater diversity in STEM.