Andrew Tootell of the University of Salford has received the Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
Andrew is a lecturer in the School of Health Sciences, Directorate of Radiography. He has been programme leader for the MSc Nuclear Medicine Imaging for the past seven years and he teaches the Nuclear Medicine MSc, BSc (Hons) Radiography and Dental X-Ray programme.
Students at all levels acknowledge his ‘special abilities’ in making challenging subjects understandable to a diverse range of students, many of whom have limited prior knowledge of the subjects.
Dr Fred Murphy, programme leader for the BSc (Hons) Diagnostic Radiography programme, said, “I have had many conversations with students who say that Andrew is brilliant at explaining complex physics in a simple manner. He uses lots of props and analogies which the students find easy to understand. This is an important skill for a lecturer dealing with level 4 students from different backgrounds.
"Andrew has brought new people into his team and they have become very effective in their roles. Applications for the coming academic year look extremely healthy. Educational leadership within the medical imaging facility in the school has come on leaps and bounds because of Andrew’s hard work and radiography as a whole is benefitting from this."
A fifth of Andrew’s time is allocated to research and the Direct measurement and mathematical modelling of radiation to humans who undergo x-ray imaging project is used by the directorate in undergraduate and postgraduate student learning.
This academic year he has first or co-authored three conference posters and presentations as well as publishing research papers in the American Journal of Medical Physics and the Canadian Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences. He will also submit a further research paper during this academic year to the British Journal of Radiology.
Andrew also plays an advisory role for a PhD student on the supervisory team.