Dr Stephanie Zihms
Lecturer in Academic Writing and Researcher Development
Graduate School
Stephanie Zihms is a Lecturer in Academic Writing and Researcher Development based in the Graduate School. She focuses on developing a variety of writing support and communities for postgraduate researcher (PGR) students and staff to help with thesis writing, writing for publication or other written outputs. Among her key research interests are peer-writing groups and using creative methods to support writers.
Stephanie is an active member of the Scottish Higher Education Researcher Developer (ScotHERD) network and from May 2023 is also the chair of the Universities Scotland Researcher Development & Culture Committee (RDCC).
She joined GCU in 2023 from the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), where she was a Lecturer in Researcher Development based in their UWS Academy from 2018 to 2021, and then in Research Services until 2023. There she focused on researcher development activities linked to the Concordat to support the Career Development of Researchers, PGR supervisor development and support for mid-career academics at UWS.
Her research interests are academic writing support and its role in community building, as well as the role of public engagement (science communication) in research-engaged teaching.
Her academic background is in geoscience and she has a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Strathclyde (2013). After finishing her PhD, she worked as a researcher for the British Geological Survey before deciding to go back into academia for a postdoc at Heriot-Watt University (HWU). She was at HWU from January 2015 to November 2018 and based in the School of Engineering, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society and the Lyell Centre. During her first postdoc, Stephanie was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and is still adapting to (academic) life with a chronic illness.