Two members of staff from the Department of Engineering have been awarded the coveted Pilkington Prize in recognition of their teaching excellence. Dr Hannah Joyce and Mr Alan Thorne are among 13 winners of this year’s prize, which is awarded annually by the University of Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning. They will each receive £1,000.
The pandemic has created a lot of challenges for students and lecturers alike. I am really impressed with how well students have adapted, and the patience and understanding they have demonstrated as we lecturers scrambled to find Covid-safe teaching methods. Winning a Pilkington Prize during such a challenging time is particularly meaningful to me.
Dr Hannah Joyce
This year's Pilkington Prize Winners were celebrated in a virtual ceremony held on Tuesday 29 June. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen J Toope, opened the ceremony with a message of congratulations and thanks to all thirteen Prize Winners, which can be viewed below. The Prizes were then awarded by Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, Professor Graham Virgo.
Hopefully this year's Prize Winners can be welcomed in person to a joint celebration in 2022.
Dr Hannah Joyce
Department of Engineering・St John's College
Dr Hannah Joyce is a Fellow of St. John’s College where she is Director of Studies for second-year engineering students, and is a Reader in the Department of Engineering. She lectures on electromagnetics in the first year of the Engineering course and semiconductor engineering in the third year, for which she has received excellent feedback from the students - including some of the highest presentation marks in student surveys and nominations for ‘Best Lecturer’. Her engaging lecture style and clarity have been particularly appreciated, referencing both historical elements and popular culture. As a female engineer, she is a role model to the women students in the department.
Hannah is also committed to outreach though summer school activities and as the University coordinator for the UK Electronic Skills Foundation, which encourages undergraduates to apply for - and successfully achieve - UKESF scholarships. Finally, in addition to undergraduate teaching, she has run the postgraduate Researcher Development Course in the Electrical Division for over 5 years, enhancing the professional skills of research students.
Dr Joyce said: "I feel really privileged to teach Engineering at Cambridge. The students are among the most brilliant in the world and their enthusiasm is contagious, so I draw a lot of inspiration from them. Their insightful questions frequently cause me to deepen my own understanding of the material I teach. So really, teaching is win-win!
“The pandemic has created a lot of challenges for students and lecturers alike. I am really impressed with how well students have adapted, and the patience and understanding they have demonstrated as we lecturers scrambled to find Covid-safe teaching methods. Winning a Pilkington Prize during such a challenging time is particularly meaningful to me.”
Mr Alan Thorne
Department of Engineering
Since 1995, Mr Alan Thorne has been tirelessly optimising the learning experience of Automation for Manufacturing Engineering students. Thanks to his leadership, the ‘Robot Lab’ has become one of the defining features of the Manufacturing Engineering Tripos, that students regularly cite as ‘the highlight of the course’. The Robot Lab is a two-week, team-based exercise to design and implement a fully automated production process. It engages the whole year-group around a common task, reflecting real industrial practice through the blending of technical and organisational, and individual and team activities. Every year, Alan seeks to enhance the learning experience, incorporating advances in automation technologies from industrial practice.
Faced with the impact of Covid this year, Alan could have opted to replace the Lab with something much simpler (and easier for him). Instead, he re-doubled his efforts and designed ‘blended’ and fully online versions of the Lab so that none of this year’s students would be short-changed on their Robot Lab experience, whatever the impact of lockdown. And all of this is just one part of his teaching and outreach work. Alan is an exemplary educator who is relentlessly focused on enhancing the student learning experience, and has done so tirelessly for a quarter of a century.
The Pilkington Prize
The Pilkington Prize was set up in 1994 by Sir Alastair Pilkington, who believed that the quality of teaching was crucial to the University’s success. The prizes are awarded to individuals who make a substantial contribution to the teaching programme of a Department, Faculty or the University as a whole. Nominations are made by each of the six Schools.
The other 2021 prize-winners are: Dr David Clifford, Dr Elizabeth Fistein, Professor Beverley Glover, Dr Nikhil Krishnan, Professor Clare Morris, Mr Bill Nicholl, Dr Tina Potter, Dr Dee Scadden, Dr Peter Sloman and Dr Anne Swift.
