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Interview with Dr Poppy Nash

Why did I join the Department?

I have been at the University since 1992. I spent the first 18 years of that period in the Department of Psychology. While I was in the Department of Psychology I had a range of research projects developing resilience programs for children at primary and secondary school and looking at how schools could promote emotional wellbeing.

In May 2011 I was very pleased to be offered a lectureship here in the Education Department. This made real sense from my research point of view because of my particular interests in educational psychology and working closely with schools.

My particular interest at the moment is exploring ways with schools of how to look at disruptive behaviour in a broader more psychological way. My current role is Director of Undergraduate Studies, which is a very wide and varying role.

What makes the Department special?

I am really pleased to be here in the Department for lots of reasons, particularly because of the collegial, friendly atmosphere. I have got a great team of colleagues working with me. I think possibly unlike bigger departments in universities, we are able to get to know our students quite well because we are a medium sized department. From the feedback we have got from students they certainly think of the Department as a big family. I think we do that particularly from a supervision point of view, we all have pastoral supervisees and we also see them for academic work as well. 

Education is a fairly unique field in that it draws from lots of disciplines. Within the Education Department I have colleges from a psychology background like myself,  from sociology, or history, or philosophy, or citizenship or teaching, that makes a really rich mix of not only colleges but also of research interests. We have four different research centres which reflect different disciplines within the Department and the study of education. I think that the study of education is absolutely gripping because it is changing all the time and because it is so fundamental to all of us at some point in our lives. We all spent a significant amount of time within the education system: it’s a very big part of us. To have the opportunity to delve deeper into it and to examine what is happening on the political front makes it a very exciting and inspiring area to study.

What does the future hold?

I hope that the Department continues to go from strength to strength. We have just started our Psychology and Education undergraduate course. I have been part of the development of that and we have lots of interest for next year from prospective students. I think that logistically it will make a difference when we can all be on the same site. I think that this will be a very unifying development.

It has been really great to be part of the 50^th celebrations, a real privilege, especially as I have been here nearly half that time and have seen the changes over time. I am very proud to be part of the University.