Meet the team
The Institute is an exciting venture co-led by an Academic Director - Professor Helen Wheatley, and a Professional Services Director - Andrew Todd. It is home to a dedicated team of professional support staff, academics, and our cohort of Fellows. We work across Warwick’s hugely talented staff and student communities, and collaborate extensively with our many wonderful external partners.
Andrew is the Professional Services Director of the Institute as part of his role as Director for Regional Engagement. He leads the University’s local growth, civic and community activities in the West Midlands. His role includes strengthening partnerships across the West Midlands and ensuring the University is embedded in its region. It also includes engaging in the development of local economic and community strategies so the University can contribute fully to the local economic, social and cultural growth.
Andrew has nearly 20 years’ experience working between universities, business and the public sector and his career includes secondments to Advantage West Midlands and the West Midlands Combined Authority focused on bringing the strengths of regional universities to support the West Midlands.
Kerry is a manufacturing engineer and sociologist and has spent the majority of her career working with academics, researchers, students, employers, teachers and young people to share knowledge and enthuse others about the world of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). Throughout her career she has designed and delivered a variety of public engagement and school events, developed and conducted training to support others and designed and manufactured specific kit to support each of these endeavours.
Kerry enjoys finding links and common ground to work successfully in partnership with others and likes to bring innovation and creativity to everything she does, channelling her enthusiasm into supporting her team, colleagues and local communities to have access to a wide range of opportunities to explore, wonder and enjoy.
Helen joined the Institute in August 2022 to work on student-led knowledge exchange.
Helen has a background in teaching, having previously worked as a primary school teacher in Birmingham. She joined Warwick in 2019 to work on Outreach and Widening Participation in WMG, and led their Bright Stars Insight into Engineering module which was taught by Warwick students in local schools. For Coventry City of Culture, she developed Stitch In Time, training local teachers to teach a cross-curricular, creative computing project. Helen has also supported postgraduate research students in WMG.
Since joining the Warwick Institute of Engagement, Helen has set up the Public and Community Engagement Module Development Fund and a programme of Public and Community Engagement Internships. She also leads WIE's support of the URSS programme, enabling students to engage the public with their summer research projects.
Kate started in Public engagement when she took our UG Public Engagement module while a student within the Faculty of Arts. She went on to undertake a summer internship with the Institute, co-creating and running an event that showcased UG research with the wider public. Kate’s involvement with the Institute continued to grow when she became our communications support officer and became involved with numerous events including the Big Read, Pint of Science and Resonate Festival. Kate is passionate about producing inclusive events and creating interdisciplinary collaborations to connect communities with research.
Josh is an experienced administrator with a background in business governance, project management and people development. He is passionate about people and creating inclusive teams. He enjoys enabling productivity through streamlined systems that ensure we can focus on what matters.
Josh joined the University in March 2020, just before the first lockdown. Starting within the HR team at WMG, he joined WIE in November of 2021 and provides the backbone to our activities, underpinning them with the financial, HR and administrative support required.
In 2023, Josh's expertise and work ethic were recognised on a regional level when he was awarded as Administrative Professional of the year in the West Midlands PA Awards.
Abbie joined WIE in July 2024 to support the team with administration and communications. With a background in marketing and admin within higher education, she is passionate about creating inclusive ways of working and looks forward to supporting the team with their exciting events and opportunities.
Lils first got involved with WIE as a student via delivering a talk at Resonate and since then has been hooked. He continued to support WIE events whilst completing his MASc in Community, Engagement, and Belonging, which included taking WIE's own public engagement module during which he designed and delivered an activity focused on exploring trans and non-binary identities in an accessible way.
Lils has now joined WIE for his first placement as part of the Graduate Management Scheme. Having a grounding in interdisciplinary learning and working, Lils is supporting events work whilst also leading on Rolling Resonate, a project designed to bring researchers' work to the public in creative ways and unconventional locations.
He has a passion for using creative media such as games and crafts to convey complex ideas and explore shared experiences in an inclusive way.
Beth is a qualified and award-winning Project Manager with a specialism in event management. Following roles in a number of Further and Higher Education Institutions, Beth moved to Warwick to undertake a three-year project management and leadership scheme. In 2021-22, she was one of the organisers of WIE's first Resonate Festival. She then moved to Warwick's Widening Participation team leading events and projects for the Science, Engineering and Medicine Faculty. Before re-joining WIE in October 2024, Beth worked in Warwick Arts Centre's Creative Learning team leading five event programmes.
Beth is passionate about improving the inclusivity of events at Warwick. She has twice been made runner-up for Warwick's Social Inclusion award, firstly for her work on the first Resonate Festival and secondly for a project with colleagues Aqsa Akhtar and Siân Bolton to design and deliver staff training on this subject. She was named Coventry's Apprentice of the Year by Coventry Freeman's Guild in 2023, and her cohort of the graduate scheme alongside the scheme's organisers won WIE's WAPCE team award in 2024.
To celebrate the University's 60th anniversary, Beth will be leading a series of events out in the community throughout 2025. Starting in the Spring, we’re going to be popping up in various community centres, town halls, shopping centres and parks across Coventry and Warwickshire with free events and activities designed to share ideas, inspire curiosity and make you smile.