Our Staff

Katie Booth, Managing Director

Katie started at AccessEd in 2019 as the Director of Programmes. Previously, Katie worked as Head of Strategy and Planning at The Challenge, the UK's largest social integration and social mobility charity. Before that, Katie worked as a senior management consultant at PwC specialising in International Development, working on former global DFID and FCO programmes specialising in education and climate change. Katie has experience working as a teacher in Colombia, India, and China, and as a Manager at a fast-growing technology start-up. Katie is a secondary school designated SEND governor at Kingsley Academy, Hounslow, and is a Non-Executive Director overseeing strategy and business development on the Board of healthandwork.org.

 

Dr Nicola Vermooten, Programmes Lead

Nicola is a registered Industrial Psychologist, who completed her PhD in Industrial Psychology at Stellenbosch University in 2018. Her doctoral study was focussed on investigating variance in employee engagement among Teachers in South Africa. While completing her PhD, Nicola worked as a Tutor of the AccessEd ZA programme. In 2020, she volunteered as the In-Country Support Lead of the AccessEd ZA programme. She is currently working as a Project Officer. Prior to her involvement with AccessEd, she gained experience in the education sector in South Africa and in South Korea.

 

Frederique Jouhandin, Project Manager

Freddie is an experienced publisher, editor and project manager, and joins AccessEd with a specialism in educational learning resources to focus on AccessEd's digital subject resources. Freddie has a track record of developing and delivering complex and multi-component projects, having worked on defining educational needs and translating them into meaningful learning resources at Pearson, Oxford University Press and Nelson Thornes. Freddie has experience across all curriculum subjects, and has an MA in Applied Foreign Languages and Post-Graduate Diploma in Technical Translation and Authoring of Multilingual Texts. 

 

Swathi Kumar, Project Officer

 

Polina Reichert, Project Assistant

Polina is a PhD researcher at Queen Mary University of London and has joined AccessEd in the summer of 2020. In her PhD research, Polina is studying metabolic proteins that form aggregates in ageing cells in hopes to better understand how older cells make energy. Having worked as a tutor for the past eight years and participated in a mentoring initiative with local schools during her undergraduate years, she appreciates the importance of increasing access to education. In her role at AccessEd Polina supports curriculum development, project administration and programme support for Scholars Ireland.

 

Dr Richard Branch, Curriculum Advisor

Richard joined AccessEd in 2018 as Curriculum Manager and as of 2020 now advises the charity on curriculum programming for maximum student subject impact. Before joining the organisation he was a physics teacher on the Researchers in Schools programme at Lampton School in west London, where he continues teaching three days a week. Prior to training on the programme, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in biophysics at Harvard University.

 

Dr Goitseone Lucy Hopkins, Founder and Head of Botswana Scholars

Lucy completed her PhD at the School of Medicine, Cardiff University, after completing her BSc, MSc and PGC-THE in the UK. She also studied at the University of Botswana where she won a scholarship to study abroad. She was an Associate tutor at Cardiff Metropolitan University. In 2016, Lucy became one of The Brilliant Club’s first PhD tutors to work in Wales. She has led Botswana Scholars since 2018.

 

Dr Chi Chi Huang, Hong Kong Scholars Founder

Chi Chi joined Hong Kong Scholars in 2018 as Programme Manager now undertaking a research fellowship at the University of Strathclyde. She led on the delivery and growth of a new university access programme in Hong Kong. Chi Chi completed her BA at the University of Sydney, her MPhil at the University of Cambridge and her PhD in History at the University of Hong Kong. She has led Hong Kong Scholars since 2017 and now advises their delivery team. 

  

Our Board of Trustees

 

Dr Rajbir Hazelwood, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees

Rajbir completed her PhD on decolonization at Washington University in St. Louis and was Assistant Professor of Modern British History at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. After 10 years in academia, Rajbir joined The Brilliant Club as Regional Manager in 2015. She then joined AccessEd as a co-founder in 2016. Rajbir is currently Head of Student Outcomes in the Social Mobility and Student Success division at King’s College London. In her role Rajbir develops and delivers a whole-institution strategy to improve outcomes for underrepresented groups.

  

Anna Machin, Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees

Anna is a chartered secretary and for the past six years worked as Deputy Company Secretary & Governance Manager at international education charity Ark. Anna now delivers advisory support to a range of charities and academy trusts and performs the role of governance professional for several public sector organisations. Anna is Co-Founder of Trust Governance Professionals, a training and development programme for academy governance professionals, and a Governor of Ark Globe Academy in Elephant and Castle. Anna is passionate about education as a means of enhancing young peoples’ life prospects.

 

Anthony Hamilton, Trustee

Anthony has over 20 years’ experience working for leading global companies in investor relations, communications, economic advisory, and strategy roles. Anthony is currently a Communications Consultant at WPP. Previously, he was Head of Investor Relations at Vodafone. His expertise is in planning and executing effective communication activities, creating a credible investment story, and building key stakeholder relationships. He is an active mentor, providing guidance and counsel for those who either are or feel disadvantaged.

 

John Schless, Trustee

John is Chief Executive of Greenwich Students’ Union (GSU) a registered charity, social enterprise and a company limited by guarantee within the HE sector. GSU is a democratic organisation run by students for students with over 20,000 members, to represent student views to the University of Greenwich at all levels and to provide support services for its members.

John has led the organisation through a transformation over the past five years. Through the implementation of the Big Plan, GSU has led key programmes to improve the BAME Awarding gap and improve social mobility at Greenwich. John and team has increased member engagement, ensured GSU services are improving mental and physical wellbeing outcomes for students, alongside increasing staff satisfaction and retention. GSU enterprise activity includes 3 venues, a coffee shop and 2 stores across 3 campuses that provide safe spaces and jobs to students.

Prior joining GSU, John was Director of Fundraising and Marketing at Get Connected (now The Mix) and led the organisation through a merger with YouthNet to form a new organisation.

John was awarded the ACEVO Fellowship in 2017, which recognises the achievements and hard work of civil society leaders.

 

Louise Banahene, Trustee

Louise Banahene is the Director of Educational Engagement at the University of Leeds.  She provides leadership on the University’s broad range of education engagement to support recruitment and widening participation including school partnerships, fair access, and contextual admissions and student success. She is also the strategic lead for the Go Higher West Yorkshire partnership – a collaboration between thirteen higher education providers across the region working together to develop higher level skills provision, outreach to widen access/target under-represented groups and new programme development. She has served as elected Chair of the Russell Group Widening Participation association. A passionate advocate for equity in access and student success, Louise also held a senior role at the University of Salford. With a degree in English and an MEd in Lifelong Learning, her career has largely been within higher education.  In 2017 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to higher education.

 

Nicole Kearse, Trustee

Nicole is Senior Legal Counsel at the African Legal Support Facility (ALSF), an international organisation that provides legal advice and technical assistance to African countries in various sovereign transactions and develops innovative tools for capacity building and knowledge management. As part of her work at the ALSF, Nicole set up and managed the ALSF Academy, a three-level capacity building and certification program for African governments and lawyers. Prior to joining the ALSF, Nicole co-founded and managed Krescent Consulting, a firm providing strategic advisory services and organizational and IT consulting to African law firms, small and medium-sized businesses, non-profit organizations and start-ups. Nicole also acted as the Director of Learning and Strategic Development for ILFA (International Lawyers for Africa). Before founding Krescent, Nicole was the deputy managing director of DaMina Advisors, an Africa-focused frontier consulting firm, where she concentrated on regulatory and legal issues related to doing business in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nicole has worked with top global law firms including Shearman & Sterling and Baker & McKenzie, and also worked at Citibank in its Latin America and Caribbean Division. Nicole earned her Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center and master`s degrees from Columbia University.

 

Sharmila Metcalf, Trustee

Sharmila is responsible for the leadership and management of STEM Learning's new and priority national student programmes that will reach pre- and post-16 students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds across the UK. Prior to this she led the STEM capacity building programmes (Nuffield Research Placements and Undergraduate Research Bursaries) at the Nuffield Foundation. She has recently undergone a secondment to the Department for Education to inform pan departmental impact and evaluation of STEM inspiration programmes. She has been a member of the Practical Science Executive Consortium (a partnership between the Nuffield Foundation, Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Wellcome) looking at ways to support and better enable schools and colleges to engage their students with good practical work in science. Before Nuffield, Sharmila worked at the British Science Association and as a secondary science teacher for six years in the UK and USA.

 

Tim Weiss, Trustee

Tim has worked for nearly 25 years in education, training and qualifications. He is currently Director of Vocational Skills at ScreenSkills, the national skills body for the film and TV industry, where he works with universities and colleges to help young people get the best quality education to make a positive start to their career. Prior to this he worked at the Education and Training Foundation supporting FE teachers, and at Pearson on BTEC qualifications, educational textbooks and eLearning. He is also trustee for an educational foundation in Cape Town giving financial support to disadvantaged young people to help them progress into higher education and work.