Theo Gilbert
Dr. Theo Gilbert SFHEA, is an Associate Professor, Learning and Teaching who has taught at the University of Hertfordshire since 2000.
He works for the University's Learning and Teaching Innovation Centre (LTIC) and its Business School. He has an MA in Ethnography and Politics of the Middle East, from the School of African and Oriental Studies, London University (1994). He has a PhD (2015) on the psycho-biological nature of compassion and how relevant - in HE teaching, learning and assessment design – an empirical understanding of the, specifically cognitive, nature of compassion is to student and staff mental wellbeing, and also to dismantling the injustice of current awarding gaps in Higher Education. This has remained his area of interest and applied research.
In relation, he won the Advance HE/ Times Higher Education award for Most Innovative Teacher 2018, has delivered keynotes and workshops at a range of annual Learning and Teaching Conferences at Universities (UK and abroad), and has twice been invited to keynote on his work at the Annual Symposium of National Teaching Fellows. His work is now used in other arenas as diverse as the school environment and the workplace, as for example, for preparing national committees of experts, commissioned by UK's National Crime Agency, to establish national policing guidelines.
Prior to his work in HE, Theo worked for five years in Further Education, and in the ten years before that in business and the private sector. Most notably his work at St Thomas' Hospital on establishing and leading a more efficient, transparent and compassionate complaints system led to a marked reduction in medical legal cases brought against Lambeth Health Authority, and as a result, the adoption of this system by other London teaching hospitals, for example, St Mary's Hospital, London. His objective is to continue disseminating an empirical understanding of the cognitive nature of compassion as a necessary part of any modern degree programme, not least in relation to students' aspirations to use their degrees in the service of others, of social equity and sustainability.