King's College London

The awards, which were established in 2006 by the King’s Doctoral College, recognise and celebrate exemplary PhD supervision across King’s.

Emma and Meg are both academics in the School of Education, Communication and Society. They were first nominated by their students, who celebrated their dedication to their research projects.

One student, Saffron Powell, wrote that both Meg and Emma ‘were so passionate about [her] research project, having countless meetings with [her] and working on [her] application until it was perfect and successful.’ She went on to say that she ‘feel[s] that they should be recognised for what they do every single day of the year.’

Before joining King’s, Emma taught for more than 10 years in London primary schools. Since then, she has collaborated on research projects here at the School of Education, Communication & Society and at UCL Institute of Education. Her personal research interests include teachers’ lives and wellbeing, teacher retention and postgraduate student learning experiences and learner identities.

Meg's research is in the sociology of education, urban education and policy. She has a long-standing interest in the lives of teachers and has explored issues of class, race, gender and age in teachers' social and professional worlds.

On behalf of the shortlisting panel, the SSPP Associate Dean for Doctoral Studies, Jelke Boesten, put Emma and Meg forward for the (shared) College award, with the following rationale:

“For SSPP, we have selected a supervisory team: Emma Towers and Meg Maguire. We believe that their nomination shows an exceptional level of care for their student, from the application stage through to the funding and currently supervisory stages. They show how important it is to pay attention to individual student’s needs, potential obstacles to gaining access to the needed support and funding to be able to do a PhD, and their attention to diversity and inclusion.

“We believe this is crucial considering the importance of breaking through cycles of privilege and disadvantage to diversify academia and provide opportunities to a broad as possible community of researchers.”

“In addition, we put Emma and Meg forward as joint supervisors to celebrate this model of supervision. Joint supervision provides opportunities for colleagues with less experience, and provides consistent supervisory practices over the years of study.”

Another student, Ratha Perumal wrote, ‘Through working with Meg, I have learned how to be an exemplary PhD supervisor to my own future PGRs.’

Xiaojing Chen, also a student of Meg’s said, ‘role models like Meg who have awarded me a wonderful learning experience and inspired me to work towards building a more equal, just, and civil society.’

Results from the College-wide Supervisory Excellence Awards are to be released this Thursday 12 December.