Dr Megan De Ste Croix

Academic Developer

Academic Quality and Development

I am an Academic Developer with a background in inclusive course design, with experience in STEM subjects. I began my career in Higher Education in 2013 in the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology at the University of Leicester where I completed a PhD in Genetics, and two post-doctoral research positions. My research focused on phase variation in a variety of respiratory and foodborne pathogens. During this time, I worked as a tutor with the Brilliant Club, designing and delivering extra curricula biology and maths programmes to School pupils in Years 7-12. This work developed my skills in course and curriculum design, while allowing me to learn from pupils in communities traditionally underserved by Higher Education about the challenges they face when considering and attending a Higher Education Institution.

In 2020 I took up post as an educational developer at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) working closely with the Schools of Science and Technology and Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences. While at NTU I implemented a new route to course approval, designed to make the process more supportive for academic colleagues. My educational and academic development work to date has focused on designing and delivering effective staff development sessions around course and curriculum design. I have experience in supporting staff to reflect on and implement changes to their learning outcomes, course content and assessments. My approach is practically based, and people can expect to leave my sessions with ideas for change.

I am a trained coach and a member of the 2021/22 Midlands Aurora cohort. Within the academic development team I have responsibility for HEA fellowships, designing and delivering support sessions, and managing the assessment of applications.

Professional memberships and activities

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member of the Microbiology Society

Academic qualifications

PhD “The type I restriction modification system SpnIII of Streptococcus pneumoniae”, University of Leicester
BSc (Hons) Biology with Professional Placement, University of Bath

Expertise

Inclusive course design
Access and participation plans
Laboratory based learning
Student centred learning
HEA fellowship
Student attainment and progression

Teaching

I have experience working with students from secondary school through to supervision of Master’s and PhD students.

Publications

All my publications are available via my Google Scholar profile.

Selected publications:

Zbinden, FR.*, De Ste Croix, M.*, Grandgirard, D., Haigh, RD., Vacca, I., Zamudio, R., Goodall ECA., ,Stephan, R., Oggioni, MR., Leib,SL. Pathogenic differences of type 1 restriction-modification allele variants in experimental Listeria monocytogenes meningitis. Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol. (2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2020.590657

*joint first authors

De Ste Croix, M., Holmes, J., Wanford, JJ., Moxon, ER., Oggioni, MR., Bayliss CD. Selective and Non-Selective Bottlenecks as Drivers of the Evolution of Hypermutable Bacterial Loci. Molecular Microbiology. (2020). doi:10.1111/mmi.14453

De Ste Croix, M., Mitsi, E., Morozov, A., Glenn, S., Andrew, PW., Ferreira, DM., and Oggioni, MR. Phase variation of pneumococcal populations in the human nasopharynx. Journal of Bacteriology. (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58684-2

De Ste Croix, M., Chen, Y., Vacca, I., Manso, AS., Johnston, C., Polard, P., Kwun, MJ., Bentley, SD., Croucher, NJ., Haigh, RD., Bayliss, CD., and Oggioni, MR. Recombination of the Phase-Variable spnIII Locus Is Independent of All Known Pneumococcal Site-Specific Recombinases. (2019). 201 (15). doi: 10.1128/JB.00233-19

De Ste Croix M., Vacca I., Croucher N., Oggioni MR. Phase variable methylation and epigenetic regulation by Type I restriction modification systems. FEMS Microbiology Reviews. 2017 Aug 1;41(Supp_1):S3-S15. doi: 10.1093/femsre/fux025.

megan.destecroix@staffs.ac.uk