Professor Stella Jones-Devitt is Professor of Critical Pedagogy at Staffordshire University and Director of the SCoLPP pedagogic research centre. Prior to this, she was Director of Learning and Teaching at Staffordshire.
Stella has significant experience and expertise in leading, designing and implementing evaluation research. She is a National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow of the HEA, Visiting Professor at Leeds Beckett University and has acted as a national Ambassador for Teaching Excellence in the UK. Her academic interests include exploring and applying innovative evaluation methodologies, flexible pedagogies and applied critical thinking. She has a keen interest in understanding more about whose voices don't get heard and why. In her prior professional career, Stella was an NHS Public Health Specialist, with a specific focus on physical activity and community engagement. She has extensive experience engaging communities in qualitative research and evaluation, and in particular, appreciative inquiry. As a critical pedagogue, Stella has particular expertise in uncovering and challenging assumptions in approaches, which ensures that research design is optimised to determine robust answers. She is presently PI for a longitudinal evaluation of QAA Scotland’s 20 Years of Enhancement Themes (£100k).