Biography
Dr Elizabeth Rushton's research interests are focused in geography and science education, specifically the professional development of teachers, student participation in research, and environmental education.
Recent research on Education for Environmental Sustainability has been funded by BERA whilst the ESRC have funded an 18-month project to support teachers who trained during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Elizabeth joined King’s in 2019 as a Research Associate, working as part of the COMnPlay-Science EU H2020 funded project. This research explores the design of making, tinkering and coding spaces and the extent to which they engender youth engagement with science. View the COMnPLAYScience website.
Between May 2020 and April 2022, Elizabeth was Subject Director of the Geography PGCE Programme. She has also been Managing Editor for the Routes, the Journal for Student Geographers, which published a Special Issue with contributions from teachers in January 2022.
Elizabeth and two of her PGCE students spoke on a podcast about the challenges and opportunities of training to be a geography teacher during a pandemic. You can listen to the podcast episode here.
Prior to joining King’s, Elizabeth was Director of Evaluation for the Institute for Research in Schools where she oversaw the evaluation of school science education programmes that involved over 300 schools and 25 universities.
In 2014, Elizabeth was awarded a PhD in Geography from the University of Nottingham and in 2015 she qualified as a geography teacher, teaching in secondary schools in Kent.
She was a member of the Centre for Research in Education in Science, Technology and Mathematics (CRESTEM) and the Environmental Education Research Group.
For more details of her publications and research, see Elizabeth's research staff profile on PURE.
Elizabeth has now moved to the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, as Associate Professor.