Eyre Hover, PhD researcher at the School of Engineering, is one of five Postgraduate students to win the Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence for Postgraduate Research Students (WATEPGR).

Eyre has been teaching since she started her Engineering PhD three years ago and has now been involved in a range of teaching experiences including laboratory sessions, on-site practical skills (Surveying) and developing the teaching skills of other PhD demonstrators.

She sees her primary goal as providing the students with the course content in a manner that they can understand and can continue to apply after the class. She therefore encourages students to move beyond the ‘cook book approach’ to practical classes to engage fully with the experiment and the underpinning theories. Students are also encouraged to reflect on the practical skills that they have gained and how they might be further applied.

Inclusivity is at the forefront of her teaching philosophy. In order to facilitate understanding she responds to the students as individuals adapting to their learning approaches and abilities. For example, she has adapted the briefs at the start of the laboratory classes to include visual and practical elements to engage and motivate the students.

Staff and students have commented on the level of support she offers to students. As a colleague says, “On many occasions she has remained with a student after everyone else has finished, patiently working with them until they complete the exercise”.

More about the Award:

The Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence for Postgraduate Research students (WATEPGR) gives students and staff the opportunity to recognise and celebrate excellent teaching by postgraduate research students. Research students can carry out a range of teaching activities including facilitating seminars, lecturing, demonstrating and project supervision.

The awards aim to: recognise and reward postgraduate research students who teach or demonstrate and who have had positive impact on the student learning experience and also to enhance the profile of teaching excellence at the University.

Further information about the Award and the other winners can be found on the Learning and Development Centre website.

More about Eyre’s research:

PhD student Eyre Hover and her supervisor Dr Qing Ni are currently involved in an exciting partnership with the tunnelling branch of civil engineering company Morgan Sindall. Eyre is using the skills she acquired during her PhD in Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) (an image processing technique which measures displacement fields in digital photographs), to calculate strains developing within fibre reinforced concrete slabs under bending.

The aim of this collaboration is to determine whether fibre reinforced concrete is a viable alternative to sprayed concrete liners used in the construction of tunnels. The project in question, the Lee tunnel, will be the deepest tunnel under London, at a depth of 80m and will be used to transport sewage.

The challenge of the project is that the customer’s requirements are much higher than what the code specifies so there is no existing experience that can be drawn directly. The analysis Eyre is doing will reveal the development of cracks with loading, therefore helping Morgan Sindall to make the most informed decision on the possible material and construction technique to be used.