Meet the team
The Institute is an exciting venture co-led by an Academic Director - Professor Michael Scott, 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 Todd, Director of the Institute
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.

Rachel Edwards, Associate Academic Director

Kerry Baker, Associate Director
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 Wheatley, Partnerships Lead

Naomi Kay, Engagement Officer

Helen Luckhurst, Engagement Officer
Helen joined the Institute in August 2022 to work on student-led knowledge exchange. Her post is funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund.
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. She is looking forward to meeting students across the University in her new role and helping them to build relationships with the public for knowledge exchange.

Laura Harford, Events Coordinator

Josh Oakes, Administrator
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.

Matthew Evans, Administrative Assistant
Matthew joined WIE in January 2023 after completing his PhD in Classics and Ancient History. During his doctoral research, he undertook various roles that focused on outreach and public engagement, including Postgraduate Student Ambassador, organising international conferences, workshops and departmental colloquia, and participating in school outreach events. He also co-founded and co-edits an online blog (Material Musings) that aims to make the research of the Department of Classics and Ancient History accessible to the wider public. Within WIE, he will offer administrative support to the team's activities and organisation.