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Melanie J Bird

Melanie Bird For media enquiries please contact the Press Team

Head of School

Faculty:
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Social Care
School:
School of Nursing and Midwifery
Location:
Chelmsford
Areas of Expertise:
Nursing and midwifery
Research Supervision:
Yes

Melanie Bird is a registered nurse (adult), and Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at ARU.

[email protected]

Background

With a clinical background in care of the elderly and stroke management and rehabilitation, and an NMC recordable teaching qualification, Melanie joined Anglia Ruskin University in 2005.

During her time at ARU, Melanie has been a pre-registration nursing tutor and module leader for both theory and practice modules within both the pre-registration and post-registration programmes, Teaching and Learning Lead for the Department of Primary and Public Health, Education Champion for the clinical areas that fall outside the NHS placement areas, course leader for the MSc Public Health, and Deputy Head of Primary and Public Health Department. She is currently Head of School for Nursing and Midwifery.

Working extensively with both NHS and private, voluntary and charitable organisations, Melanie - supported by a wider team of academic staff and learning technologists - has developed innovation in practice learning and has been instrumental in developing virtual and simulated practice experiences and blended placement experiences for nursing students. These developments at ARU have received national recognition and have been shortlisted for several prestigious awards.

Research interests

  • Student experience
  • Curriculum development
  • International student education and academic development

Melanie’s Professional Doctorate (EdD) focused her research on exploring the previous learning experience of international students in order to find out if these influence or have an impact on their expectations when studying at a UK HEI.

Teaching

As Head of School, Melanie’s teaching is greatly reduced; however, she regularly teaches both pre-registration nursing (adult) students and post-registration students.

Her experience and expertise in Stroke Management and Rehabilitation and with the SafeMedicate Medicine Dosage Calculation Software is utilised extensively within the Faculty.

Qualifications

  • Principal Fellow of the High Education Academy
  • Education Doctorate (EdD) – Exploring the previous learning experiences of international students to see if these have an impact when undertaking studies at a UK HEI.
  • MSc Medical and Healthcare Education, Anglia Ruskin University
  • Postgraduate Diploma (Teaching and Learning), University of Essex
  • BSc Nursing (Adult), Anglia Polytechnic University