Writtle University College and ARU have merged. Writtle’s full range of college, degree, postgraduate and short courses will still be delivered on the Writtle campus. See our guide to finding Writtle information on this site.

Professor Claire Pike

Claire Pike For media enquiries please contact the Press Team

Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Enhancement)

Location:
Cambridge
Areas of Expertise:
Education and teaching , Cell and Molecular Biology
Research Supervision:
Yes

Claire is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Enhancement) at ARU. In this role, she leads work on curriculum development and enhancement, academic quality, student achievement, and the student experience across a wide range of courses, disciplines and delivery modes. She is passionate about the power of education to positively transform people's lives.

[email protected]

Background

Claire read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, progressing to the MSc in Biochemistry and then a PhD in the field of epigenetics and transcriptional control at the Gurdon Institute. She completed a postdoctoral Research Associateship at the Hutchison/MRC Research Centre, focussing on the genetics and genomics of breast cancer, and joined Anglia Ruskin University in 2013.

She has lectured on a broad range of biomedical sciences topics in London and at ARU, supervises PhD students in cognate – and education-related – disciplines, and has played a key part in creating new degree courses, which were successfully accredited. Claire is a National Teaching Fellow; a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology; a member of the Executive Committee of the Heads of University Sciences of Biomedical Sciences; and a member of the Curriculum Committee, the Education Policy Advisory Group, and the Diversity and Inclusion Network of the Royal Society of Biology. Claire led ARU’s submission to the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework, the Faculty of Science and Engineering’s successful application for an Athena SWAN Award, and is leading the Talent pillar of the Cambridge University Health Partners Life Sciences 2050 Vision.

Alongside her educational leadership and research work, Claire has taught for over 15 years at the University of Cambridge, supervising undergraduates in the Biological Natural Sciences Tripos and acting as a Director of Studies for Magdalene College.

Research interests

  • Epigenetic regulation of gene expression
  • Genes that are found to be recurrently targeted by structural change to chromosomes
  • Signalling factors that maintain integrity of the mammary epithelium, and the effects of their dysregulation
  • Breast cancer genetics – toward finding ‘drivers’ of tumorigenesis in genetically dissimilar cases
  • Molecular mechanisms of chemotherapeutic drug resistance
  • The most effective activities, pedagogies and assessment types for student learning, across diverse student bodies and settings
  • Diversity and inclusion in education: addressing the talent ‘leaky pipeline’

Areas of research supervision

  • Breast cancer genetics
  • Chemotherapeutic drug resistance
  • Pedagogy and educational research

Teaching

BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science

MSc Applied Bioscience

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Cambridge
  • MSci Biochemistry, University of Cambridge
  • MA Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge

Memberships, editorial boards

  • National Teaching Fellow
  • Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology
  • Executive Committee Member of Heads of University Centres of Biomedical Sciences
  • Member of the Education Policy Advisory Group of the Royal Society of Biology
  • Member of the Curriculum Committee of the Royal Society of Biology
  • Member of the Diversity and Inclusion Network of the Royal Society of Biology