Gonville & Caius College Fellow Professor Liz Harper was honoured for her supervisions at the Cambridge Students’ Union Student-Led Teaching Awards.

Natural Sciences Fellow Liz was named the winner of the Small-Group Teaching (Science & Technology) category, with Fellow in English Dr Deborah Bowman highly commended in the Small-Group Teaching (Arts, Humanities & Social Science) category.

The SLTAs exist to reward outstanding teaching and student support across Cambridge, Cambridge SU says, with over 400 nominations submitted by students this year. The shortlists and winners were decided by panels of students, with an award ceremony taking place on Tuesday night.

Liz is an evolutionary biologist interested in biomineralisation and ocean acidification. She teaches across the undergraduate course in the Earth Sciences Department. She teaches the entire first year, from geophysics to palaeontology, with more specialist papers in later years.

“I’ve been doing supervisions for 35 years so it’s a good feeling,” Liz says.

“Supervisions are a really key part of what we do. I do a huge number of supervisions a week and they could all feel similar. But actually they’re all very individual.

“I enjoy each hour a lot because the students all have different problems or observations to make. Often in being forced to explain things you realise what you don’t understand. You learn quite a lot, still after 35 years. Undergraduates have a knack of asking disarming questions and it’s very valuable.”

Dr Andrew Spencer, the Senior Tutor, was shortlisted in the Student Support (Non-Academic Staff) category.

Congratulations to Liz, pictured below, Deborah and Andrew for their nominations and success.

The full announcement is on the Cambridge SU website.

Photo credit: Rocky Yu