Dr S. P. S. Eyres, BSc, MSc, PhD, PGCert, FRAS, MInstP, MIAU, FHEA

Skills

Skills summary

Developing a strategy and associated operational requirements to develop learning, teaching and assessment in the Faculty.
Planning for staff development and succession, including mentoring, providing opportunities to gain experience and aligning staff aspirations to School priorities.
Academic Leadership of the School, including establishing key priorities, School identity and gaining support from staff.
Management of staff and operations budgets, including change management.
Rapid assimilation of scientific and technical information.
Accurate and rigorous scientific writing.
Oral and written presentation of results and resource proposals.
Document preparation, web authoring, graphic design. Use of WebCT.
Data reduction, handling & analysis.
Computer programming.
Supervision, teaching and training of school, undergraduate, and postgraduate students, the public, and fellow staff.
Experience in international collaborative projects.
Organization and execution of independent work.
Planning and execution of scientific and observational projects.
Team working.
Quick acquisition of new skills.
Media relations

Skills details

Staff development: As Head of School, I have worked with staff individually and in teams to develop their capabilities. This has involved balancing individual aspirations and aptitudes across teams, ensuring we can provide an excellent experience for students while developing our research programmes. Within the formal frameworks of the University, I have mentored staff to achieve Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and to be promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader, Principal Lecturer and Professor positions. Informally I also support staff and research students in pursuing their careers, and work to grow a supportive culture for development.
Academic Leadership: As Head of School, I provide strategic direction and priorities for the staff of Physical Sciences and Computing. In this new role I must liaise on behalf of the School with other Heads, College Directors and the Executive Dean. A key skill is gaining the support of staff in meeting those priorities, and ensuring they work collaboratively with other staff in the College and School.
Management: As Associate Dean of School, and previously Associate Head of School, Acting Head of School, Acting Head of the Centre for Astrophysics and Acting Head of Physics I manage operational budgets, including equipment purchase, consumables, staffing and conference funds. I also manage staff, including appraisals, allocation of duties, direction of operations, management of change (previously relocation of operation and merger into new School structure, currently development and expansion of all provision). From 2011 January I am also co-ordinating research planning and monitoring in the School.
Rapid assimilation: Reading and understanding large bodies of research literature prior to beginning study of a new area; reading and understanding telescope, instrument and software manuals prior to use; following higher education policy and market developments.
Writing: Strategy documents; development plans; course materials; telescope proposals to acquire observing time in international competitive allocation processes, including Hubble Space Telescope time; research papers accurately and succinctly reporting scientific results.
Presentation: Oral contributions to research conferences; teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students; research seminars; research `poster' papers; assisting at the ARI stand at the Tomorrow's World Live Event 2000; assisting at ARI and UCLan stands at Astrofest 2001 and 2002-6 respectively, leading UCLan presence at Astrofest 2007-2009; briefing staff on University policy and strategy.
Document preparation: Layout and proofing of research papers; writing and publishing of WWW pages; graphical presentation of astronomical images and spectra to convey results; creation and management of the ISO Nova archive page at Keele University; creation of distance learning materials in electronic format; use of WebCT to deliver on-line courses.
Data handling: Managing data transfer from remote observing sites and archives; formatting data for software analysis; rigorous data quality assessment; combining and comparing data to yield scientific returns.
Programming: Undergraduate training in FORTRAN; one week course on C++ and object-oriented programming; use of perl for Web CGI and data manipulation scripts.
Supervision, teaching and training: Consultant on design of UCLan WebCT training courses; supervision of PhD students in use of software and telescopes, understanding of scientific methods, astrophysics and astronomy, and writing of telescope proposals and research papers; supervision of Year 3 BSc(Hons) Mathematics projects; tutoring mathematics to Physics students at Manchester University; tutoring astrophysics to Astrophysics students at Keele University; tutoring distance learning students at JMU; lecturing and tutoring Natural Science students in Practical Astronomy at JMU; lectures to adult education astronomy course; public lectures at astronomical societies; preparation of distance learning materials at UCLan and JMU; teaching observatory laboratories at Levels 5 and 6 (full-time undergraduate) and for observatory weekends for distance learning students (Level 5)
International collaborations: Collaborating on observing programmes on the Very Large Array, the Hubble Space Telescope the Infrared Space Observatory, Giant Metre-wave Telescope, Spitzer, Swift.
Independent work: Carrying out successful observing programmes using telescopes on Hawaii (UKIRT) and in Chile (2.2m); initial data reduction and interpretation of research results.
Project management: Management of distance learning programmes as Course Leader; management of School staff and resources to deliver teaching, research and KT; development of IT for Astronomy and Introduction to Astrobiology; managing observing programmes on both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Infrared Space Observatory; managing target-of-opportunity observations on the Very Large Array and MERLIN.
Team working: Enabling teams to deliver specific programmes including Astronomy Distance Learning (2006-2009) and a significant revision of Year 1 computing in 2011/12; coordinating teams to solve short-term resource issues as they arise; facilitating on-line learning workshops; working with collaborators to write research papers and telescope proposals; working with staff and students at JMU to prepare and deliver the Tomorrow's World Live Event 2000 contribution; working with staff at UCLan, JMU and Keele University to organise undergraduate teaching.
New skills: Learning new skills in staff management and development, budget control, course development, on-line tutoring, CCD imaging, IR spectroscopy, radio interferometry, computer programming, speaking and writing, graphic design as required by my studies and jobs to date.
Media Relations: During my time at UCLan I attended a course on giving interviews to the television media. As a PDRA I attended a course on interacting with the media, including how to conduct interviews, writing press releases, and what journalists and other reporters are looking for. I have given a number of radio interviews, participated in national live television programmes and answered questions for journalists.

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Stewart Eyres @ CES , USW | Wed Dec 30 10:11:18 2020 |