Iain is a Senior Lecturer in AI in Education in King's Academy. His work focuses on institutional AI (artificial intelligence) and education strategy, AI literacy, and the integration of AI into policy and practice. He brings experience of leading AI in education initiatives, including developing institutional AI literacy frameworks, staff and student guidance, and evidence-informed approaches to professional development.

Before joining King's, Iain was Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where he held institutional leadership responsibility for academic professional development and led the AI in Education working group. Prior to LSHTM, Iain held a range of academic and educational leadership roles at St Mary's University, Twickenham, where he taught across the geography curriculum, led international fieldtrips, served as Programme Director, and held the role of Academic Director for Teaching and Learning Quality and Enhancement with responsibility for learning and teaching quality.

Iain's research is focused on wicked problems. His work on climate change pedagogy examines how universities can engage students with the complex, contested dimensions of sustainability, framing climate change as a 'super-wicked' problem that requires authentic, solution-oriented learning. This extends to questions of how institutions mainstream climate change education and develop sustainability skills at scale. Iain led an Advance HE funded collaborative project, Sustainable Institutions, in 2022-23. He has sought to apply a wicked problems framing to the complexities of AI in education, the subject of a forthcoming book chapter.

Iain holds a PhD in environmental geography from the University of Nottingham (2009), a BSc in Environmental Geography from University College London (2005), and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

ORCiD: 0000-0002-8245-5628

 

Selected publications:

Cross, I. D. (in press) ‘A whole institution approach to AI in higher education’ in Kerrigan, M., Pratt-Adams, S., Warnes, M. and Evangelinos, G. (eds.) Designing and Leading Institutional, Technological Transformation Projects. Routledge.

Cross, I. D. and Congreve, A. (2024) Sustainable Institutions: an evidence informed review of good practice. Advance HE.

Oputa, O. and Cross, I. D. (2021) Be SMART: A BAME staff-student partnership to enhance graduate employability. Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and

Change, 7 (1): https://journals.studentengagement.org.uk/index.php/studentchangeagents/article/view/1038 Thew, H., Graves, H., Reay, D…Cross, I. D. et al. (2021) Mainstreaming Climate Change Education in UK Higher Education Institutions. COP26 Universities Network Working Paper.

Cross, I. D. and Congreve, A. (2020) Teaching (super) wicked problems: the challenges of authentic learning about climate change. Journal of Geography in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2020.1849066

Cross, I. D. (2019) ‘Changing behaviour, changing investment, changing operations’: using citizen science to inform the management of an urban river. Area. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12597

Congreve, A. and Cross, I. D. (2019) Integrating ecosystem services into decision making. Journal of Applied Ecology. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13341