CEER Staff
Professor Alan Smithers BSc, PhD, MSc, PhD, MEd, CPsychol.
Alan Smithers is the Director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research. He has been previously Sydney Jones Professor of Education at the University of Liverpool (1998-2004), Professor of Policy Research at Brunel University (1996-1998), and Professor of Education at the University of Manchester (1976-1996). He was first a research scientist at London University and was recruited to the study of education.
His most recent research has been on educating clever children; the impact of international comparisons on education policies; school admissions; and physics in schools and universities. He has also published extensively on school examination and test results; teacher training, recruitment and retention; specialist schools; independent schools, technical and vocational education, headship, and single-sex education. He has written many refereed papers in biology, psychology and education, and reports and books on education and employment.
He has served on national committees including the National Curriculum Council, the Beaumont Review of National Vocational Qualifications and the Royal Society Committee on Teacher Supply. Since 1997 he has been specialist adviser to the House of Commons Education Committee.
Professor Smithers can be contacted directly:
Email: alan.smithers@buckingham.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1280 820270 (direct line)
Dr Pamela Robinson BA, MSc, PhD, PGCE.
She has collaborated with Professor Alan Smithers in the work of the Centre for Education and Employment Research since 1984 and has published widely in the fields of international education, teacher provision, flows into science and technology, gender and education, and further and higher education.
Dr Robinson can be contacted directly:
Email: pamela.robinson@buckingham.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1280 820353 (direct line)
Dr John Williams BSc, PhD, FRSC, CChem, CSci.
He has published a number of research papers in chemistry, particularly on phosphetans, some of which led to patents. He is also co-author of the book Quality in Learning: A Capability Approach in Higher Education, London: Kogan Page, 1992.