Holly Heshmati
Associate Professor
Tel: 024 76 575845
Room: WA 1.05d
Email: h.heshmati@warwick.ac.uk
Centre email: CTE@warwick.ac.uk
Holly is the Subject Lead for Mathematics and leads undergraduate modules across both Primary and Secondary Education programmes. She supervises MA students and teaches on undergraduate Introduction to Teaching modules. Holly is committed to the belief that educational success should be shaped not by social background, but by the quality of education and opportunities provided to students.
A key focus of Holly’s research is resilience and its role in enabling individuals to navigate and manage everyday challenges. Her work spans personal resilience, academic resilience, teacher resilience, and mathematical resilience, with a particular interest in how resilience can be developed and sustained within educational contexts. Holly has presented her research at a range of international conferences and seminars and is committed to exploring how resilience can support self-efficacy, learning, wellbeing, and long-term success in education and beyond.
At the University of Warwick, Holly continues to explore innovative approaches to teaching, learning, and pre-service teacher education. She has extensive experience in online and blended learning, curriculum and assessment design, and the effective integration of data and technology within educational settings.
Professional and Teaching Expertise
Curriculum and assessment design; teacher education; educational research; mathematics education; post-16 education.
Academic Interests and Teaching & Learning Specialisms
Holly holds a PhD in Education, with a background in mathematics and physics. Her research and teaching interests include resilience, higher education, mathematics education, STEM teaching and learning, the impact of technology on education, pre-service teacher education, and the sociology of education.
Selected Publications
Heshmati, H. (2026) ‘Practitioner Research in Education: Philosophical Foundations, Contextual Applications, and Policy Implications’, in The BERA Guide to Practitioner Research: Developing Professional Knowledge in Educational Research and Practice. pp. 15–22.
Heshmati, H., Wang, Y.L., Barmby, P. and Zhang, W. (2025) ‘Pre-service teachers’ representations of effective mathematics teaching: An MKT analysis of trainees’ conceptions and peer-judgement reflections’, Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics, 45(3).
Heshmati, H. and Lin, L. (2025) ‘Exploring practical strategies for building resilience in pre-service teachers’, Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal, 16(1), pp. 37–49.
Yang, J., Seyedebrahimi, M., Low, M. and Heshmati, H. (2024) ‘Public Engagement in Action: Developing an Introductory Programming Module for Apprentices’, arXiv preprint, arXiv:2412.15223.
Heshmati, H. and Morgan, J. (2024) ‘Working in Further Education with adult learners’, in The Mathematical Resilience Book. pp. 166–179.
Heshmati, H., Wang, L. and Barmby, P. (2024) ‘Making sense of mathematics mastery: a comparative judgement approach towards pre-service teachers’ understanding’, Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics, 44(3), pp. 44–47.
Heshmati, H. and Farsani, D. (2022) ‘Visual attention in mathematics classroom: use of eye-glass cameras’, International Journal of Innovation in Education, 7(3/4), pp. 285–291.
Heshmati, H., Johnston-Wilder, S. and Findon, M. (2020) ‘Developing pre-service maths teachers resilience using the growth zone model’, International Journal of Innovation in Education.6(3/4), pp.162–183.
Other Positions
• Executive Editor: IJIIE
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Member: BSRLM, AMiE