Professor Kim Piper is the inaugural Academic Director for Student Success at King’s College London, appointed in 2024 to lead university-wide strategy on student success, access, inclusion, and student outcomes. Her work focuses on embedding student success, access, inclusive education, , and driving institutional change to support undergraduate and postgraduate success.

She joined King’s in 2019 as Dean for Education in the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, where she led transformative reforms in governance, curriculum, and assessment alongside the development of a new 3.1 M simulation and haptics laboratory. Her leadership has shaped the development of the university’s Access and Participation Plan (APP), the launch of the Personal Tutor Dashboard, and the expansion of outreach programmes such as K+, United Learning Teacher CPD, communication strategy including newsletters for Parents and the award-nominated ROAR initiative.

Professor Piper holds a BDS (1990) from the University of London, a PhD in Bone Cell Biology (1995) from UCL, and an MA in Higher and Professional Education (2007) from the Institute of Education. She is a Fellow of both the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Surgeons and is listed on the General Dental Council’s specialist register in Oral & Maxillofacial Pathology.

Her leadership spans both the higher education and NHS sectors, with expertise in curriculum design, clinical education, assessment, and strategic communications. She has been an elected member of KCL council and held senior roles at Queen Mary University of London, including Head of Admissions and Widening Participation for Medicine and Dentistry, and led the transformation of oral pathology services at Barts Health NHS Trust.

Professor Piper is a nationally recognized leader in widening participation and inclusive education. She represents King’s in sector forums including London Higher, the Russell Group Student Success Group, and previously Medical Schools Council, and has contributed to national policy through ministerial roundtables and curriculum reform committees. She is also Chair of Examiners for the

Royal College of Pathologists, and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons Clinical Standards Committee.

Her research spans basic science, clinical pathology, and educational innovation, with recent work focusing on student wellbeing, creative health, and inclusive pedagogy. She has led successful bids to Health Education England, SMaRteN, and Erasmus+, and her team awarded the Times Higher Education Digital Innovation Award in 2021.

Research Interests

· Widening Participation

· Inclusive Education

· Belonging and Flourishing

· Creative Health

· Basic Cell Biology and Pathology

 

Selected Publications

· Experiential learning spaces and student wellbeing: a mixed-methods study of students at three research intensive UK universities Elsden, E., Kador, T., Sercombe, H., Piper, K., Barkan, M., Webster, E., Smyth Zahra, F. International Review of Psychiatry, 35(7-8), 2023 https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2023.2268720

· Understanding the Targeting Strategies and underpinning Drivers of School Staff in the Figured World of a Widening Participation Initiative Agrawal, R., Piper, K., Freeth, D. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 26(3), 2024 https://doi.org/10.5456/WPLL.26.3.85

· Scaffolding competence-based learning design in the dental simulation curriculum Foxton, R., San Diego, J.P., Lu, E., Rajadurai, S., Bartlett, A., McIlwane, C., Austin, R., Srisontisuk, P., Sagoo, A.K., Piper, K. European Journal of Dental Education, 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.12985