Professor Mark Winterbottom

  • Partner - Cambridge Heritage Research Centre
  • Professor of Education - Faculty of Education
  • Deputy Head - Faculty of Education
Professor Mark Winterbottom

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About

Mark Winterbottom is a Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. He is Deputy Head of Faculty and leads the science/biology PGCE course, also being biological safety officer for the Faculty. Until recently, he was course manager for the Secondary PGCE as a whole. Mark also coordinates leadership training for those trainee teachers who want to run the Duke of Edinburgh Award in school, and for those who want outdoor leadership qualifications. Mark has taught on undergraduate and Masters programmes.

Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a Chartered Biologist. He reviews for a wide variety of academic journals, for academic conferences (such as ERIDOB), and is Editor of the Journal of Biological Education, and is on the editorial board of Scientific Reports and the International Journal for Transformative Research. Mark is Chair of the judging panel for the Biology Teacher of the Year Award in the UK, and has been a member of the judging panel for Cambridge University Press’ dedicated teacher awards. He himself was nominated for a student-centred teaching award from the Cambridge University Students' Union. He is a founding member of the Centre of Excellence in Technology Education, and a former Chair of the East Anglian branch of the Royal Society of Biology and the Duke of Edinburgh Award Regional Advisory Board for the Eastern region. He was Chair of the engagement panel for the SAMHE project on air quality in classrooms. He represents the Faculty of Education on the Secondary forum and Management forum of the Universities' Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET). Mark has provided advice to Government, for example as part of the Expert Reference Group for the revisions of the Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework. He is a member of the policy fellows network of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy. Mark is, or has been, external examiner at a number of Universities, including for the MA in Education (Science) at UCL, and for the common core curriculum at the University of Hong Kong.

Research

Mark's research interests are in science and biology education, both inside and outside the classroom, heritage education, inquiry-based education, teacher education, and classroom environment (with a current focus on air quality as part of the TAPAS network and CO-TRACE and SAMHE projects). He has a large group of PhD students, researching diverse aspects of science education, in both formal and informal contexts, and has been an active participant in the Cambridge-Africa Partnership for Research Excellence. He is a member of the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre, an associate partner of REACH, and guest editor of Heritage Education for Sustainable Development, a special issue of the journal Sustainability. He is also on the steering committee of the Collections-Connections-Communities Strategic Research Initiative of the University. Mark holds a number of externally funded research grants.