Susan A. Brooks Director of Researcher Development, Oxford Brookes University

Professor Susan Brooks is Director of Researcher Development at Oxford Brookes University where she develops, oversees and delivers the professional development and skills training programmes for research students and research-active staff at all levels across the University. She began her academic career by completing a doctorate, in pathology, at University College London Medical School in 1990. She continued with post-doctoral cancer research at the same institution until 1995 when she joined Oxford Brookes University, initially as a Senior Lecturer in Cell Biology, and later as Reader. Her interest in researcher development began in 2006 when she took what was originally planned to be a 3-year half-time secondment that eventually turned into an ongoing passion - fuelled by her own experience of the joys and challenges of attempting to build a career from the starting point of being a researcher. She continues to teach biomedical sciences to undergraduates and heads a small cancer research team alongside her researcher development role. She was promoted to Professor in 2016, partly based on her researcher development work. Susan has a deep interest in mentoring, having established a University-wide research staff mentoring scheme in 2015 and, over the course of her career so far, having benefitted from the wisdom, experience and friendship of many formal and informal mentors.