Staff profiles

David Bignell

Programme Lead Rehabilitation Work

David is a qualified Rehabilitation Worker and the Programme Lead for the Foundation Degree in Rehabilitation Work (Visual Impairment), the BSc (Hons) Specialist Complex Needs Rehabilitation Work top up’ degree and the BSc (Hons) Habilitation Work Working with Children and Young People course. David studied at the Guide...

Peter Cooke

Senior Lecturer/Admissions Tutor

Peter's key experience of Rehabilitation Work arose from working in the heart of Birmingham area delivering rehabilitation assessment and training to people newly diagnosed with sight loss. This area of Birmingham was particularly challenging due to high numbers of people of working age whose sight loss was often accompanied...

Dr Christel de Bruijn

Senior Lecturer and Lead for Research Development

Christel studied Speech Technology at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands (old style 4-year ‘doctoral’, equivalent to Master), after which she undertook PhD research at the University of Sheffield on acoustic and perceptual parameters of voice during prolonged speaking. In 2003 she joined the Department of Speech and...

Lesley Ann Docherty

Senior Lecturer

Lesley Ann qualified in 2001 from UCE and worked at Selly Oak Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital until joining the University in 2014. She worked in the Stroke Unit and supported patients in the Burns Unit and ITU. Lesley Ann currently holds an honorary contract at a local NHS hospital.

Claire Hartley

Senior Lecturer

Claire Hartley is a Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) and Senior Lecturer (in acquired communication difficulties) at Birmingham City University. She is also the Programme Director for the Return to Practice in SLT Programme. Her interests include aphasia, motor speech disorders, simulated practice in SLT, and working with...

Hannah Harvey

Assistant Lecturer/Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant

Hannah is a Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant on the Speech and Language Therapy course. She joined Birmingham City University as a PhD student in September 2015 working on the use of diagnostic labels in children’s developmental speech, language and communication needs.

Dr Thomas Hopkins

Senior Lecturer in SLT, Research Coordinator and Deputy Chair

Tom is a psychologist who teaches the psychology strand that exists across several modules within the BSc and MSc Speech and Language Therapy degree course. This includes aspects of developmental psychology, social and cognitive psychology as well as applying psychotherapy to speech and language therapy practice. Having gained...

Kirsty Jackson

Senior Lecturer

Since qualifying, Kirsty has worked as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist and Activities of Daily Living and Braille Tutor for Children and Young People with a visual impairment in the South East of England. She has also worked with ex-service men and women who have a sight loss at Blind Veterans UK as a Rehabilitation...

Dr Wouter Jansen

Senior Lecturer and Joint Programme Lead (MSc Speech and Language Therapy)

Wouter lectures on the BSc Speech and Language Therapy degree, and also acts as Admissions Tutor for this course. He teaches (clinical) linguistics, phonetics, and research methods and currently leads two modules: SPR5018 Appraising Communication and Swallowing Needs , and SPR6015, the final year research and evidence-based...

Helen Jenkins

Associate Professor/Head of Department

Helen is Head of Department for Speech and Language Therapy and Rehabilitation Studies in Visual Impairment and is responsible for overseeing the department’s programme development, research profile and enterprise activity. Helen qualified as a Speech and Language Therapist in 1984 at Leicester Polytechnic. She initially...