Katherine Haxton

Biography

I was appointed as a Lecturer in Chemistry at Keele in April 2008 and Senior Lecturer in April 2015.  I obtained my MChem degree in 2001 from the University of St Andrews and remained there for my PhD (2004) under the supervision of Prof. Russell Morris, thesis “Silsesquioxane Dendrimers as Catalysts: Synthesis and Molecular Modelling”.  I then moved to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and in 2006 was awarded a CIHR-RxD Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Pharmacy working on “Dendrimers and Hyperbranched Polymers for the Delivery of Organometallic Anticancer Drugs”.  I was appointed as a KIITE curriculum design fellow in 2020 and a KIITE scholar in 2023.

I am a chemistry education researcher with interests in factors that influence student success such as conceptual understanding, workload and attitude to study.  I am part of a national group of STEMM focused academics who run workshops on decolonising science. My educational scholarship publications span a decade and include work on feedback in various formats, outreach with museums, and the role of technology such as lecture capture and assessment of presentation skills using screencasts. I was awarded the 2020 Green Gowns award, Staff Sustainability Champion category for my work on our Sustainable Chemistry module and work within the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences to promote sustainability across all activities.

Research and scholarship

My primary area of research is chemistry education, driven by a key research question: how do we ensure chemistry curricula are fit for the challenges of the 21st century? From this key question, I work with project students and collaborators to explore several themes within that: developing conceptual understanding and ‘think like a chemist’ skills; the place of sustainability and social justice both in what and how we teach; and the impacts of attitude to study and workload on student success.

Teaching

My teaching responsibilities are broad and span inorganic, polymer, sustainable and industrial chemistry. I currently teach 2^nd year multinuclear NMR, 3^rd year inorganic reaction mechanisms, 3^rd year polymer chemistry, 1^st year sustainable chemistry and 2^nd year industrial chemistry. I supervise 3^rd and 4^th year projects and dissertations across chemistry education topics such as embedding sustainability into curricula and how students study,  and laboratory based chemistry including sustainability projects using campus as a living laboratory.

I also run workshops on ethics in chemistry and science communication.

Outreach

I have developed a range of outreach activities aimed at increasing public awareness of chemistry and it’s relevance to society.  This work has been funded by a number of organisations including the Royal Society of Chemistry’s outreach fund, the North Staffordshire Local Section and the Salters Institute.

I have a range of workshops, talks and activities that can be delivered in laboratory/classroom settings or standard rooms and tailored to the needs of specific audiences. Typically these focus on sustainability and chemistry, as well as bridging the gap between creative arts and science communication.