Professor Anne Tierney

Anne Tierney is currently an Assistant Professor in the Learning and Teaching Academy at Heriot-Watt University, where she is institutional theme lead for the current QAA Enhancement Theme, and deputy programme director for the PGCertTL. Prior to that she was a lecturer in academic practice in the Department of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at Edinburgh Napier University for six and a half years, and a Senior University Teacher at the University of Glasgow, where she taught biology, commercialisation and employability for eighteen years.

Anne’s current interests are in Threshold Concepts in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), having completed a PhD on the effects of the Research Excellence Framework on teaching in Higher Education, at Durham University. Her previous interests include work-related learning, enquiry-based learning, and teaching large cohorts. Anne is Deputy Director of Improving University Teaching, an international conference which has met annually since 1975. She serves on the organisation board of several other Teaching and Learning in Higher Education conferences, and edits and reviews for several Teaching and Learning journals. She has published extensively on SoTL and teaching in higher education, and has delivered keynotes in the UK, Europe and Australia. She has been invited to work in Canada and New Zealand and is the recipient of the University of Glasgow Teaching Excellence Award.