Dr?Jess?Spurrell MEng, PhD
Schools University Partnerships Officer (SUPO)
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Jess manages the University's engagement with schools, colleges and youth groups, supporting our researchers in developing interactive activities to engage school pupils in cutting edge research.
As SUPO Jess is responsible for:
- Building relationships?with local schools, colleges and youth groups, through networks (such as SEF), project work, and working with our Widenin Participation (WP) and Initial Teacher Education (ITE) teams.
- Supporting University staff and students?who wish to engage with schools on an individual, project based, group, department and faculty level through talks, seminars, workshops, drop-ins and friendly chats over a cup of tea.
- Organising our Engaging with Schools training session?for University staff and students, delivered by local teachers, WP and ITE staff, and featured in the international journal Research for All
- Supporting University staff and students and schools with relevant funding applications, and collating and directing people towards such opportunities.
- Triage of requests and potential projects, through the monthly Shout-Out email of opportunities to engage and match-making school-university partnerships.
- Developing resources for engagement, with the support of University student interns, such as our internationally-recognised Building School-University Partnerships Guide Book and our growing suite of Online Resources for Schools connecting cutting edge research to the curriculum.
- Development and championing of the Outreach and Engagement Activity Mapping Tool?– log in and explore at www.soton.activitymapper.org.uk and find out more about the project at www.activitymapper.org.uk
- Running the Teacher Zone at SOTSEF?Science and Engineering Day
The role is jointly supported by PERu and the Widening Participation team, in which Jess manages the following projects:
- Ask the Expert
- Brilliant Club
- Dragonfly Day
- STEM Badge Day and Celebration Event
Jess has a PhD in Cryogenic Engineering & Superconductivity from the University of 天发娱乐棋牌_天发娱乐APP-官网|下载. This is almost entirely unrelated to her MEng degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering with European Studies, which she studied also at the University of 天发娱乐棋牌_天发娱乐APP-官网|下载 and at the SupAéro institute in Toulouse, France (because if there’s one way to make ‘Rocket Science’ harder it’s to do it in French/a second language – she can confirm, it was much harder!). This was also only loosely related to her third year research project about a Wave Energy Converter so she is an expert in not taking the direct path. It was through an accidental summer work placement at Air Products that she discovered that cryogenics is cool – seriously cool…
After discovering that other people are also excited by freezing things in liquid nitrogen and the science behind it, she has given over 50 talks, workshops and demonstrations around the UK including at Winchester and Brighton Science festivals, Science Show-off, Researchers’ Café, The Science Room @ the Art House, the Green Power Challenge, the Energy Exhibition at the Royal School of Art, and more. In the true spirit of procrastination, in 2015 she co-founded Bright Club 天发娱乐棋牌_天发娱乐APP-官网|下载 and was an accidental performer at the first show (and somehow got asked to perform a second time!). From April 2016 to January 2017 she was also managing the UKRI-funded, NCCPE-co-ordinated Talk to US! school-university partnership initiative hosted by 天发娱乐棋牌_天发娱乐APP-官网|下载 Education School and since January 2017 this role has morphed into the university’s first School-University Partnership Officer.
She has been a STEM Ambassador, a proud and active supporter of Ada Lovelace Day, International Women's Week and National Women in Engineering Day events and a curator of celebratory blog shouting out for unsung heroes!