Staff Profile

  • Cristina has a BA (honours) in Modern Foreign Languages (English and German) from the University of Turin, Italy, and an MEd in Special Educational Needs and Inclusion, and MPhil in Educational Research (ESRC recognised) and a PhD from the University of Cambridge[1]. She taught Italian in England and in Lebanon where she set up the first course of Italian language at the Lebanese University. Back in the UK, Cristina worked as a PR and executive secretary for the Director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge and as a researcher, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Prior to doing her PhD, she worked as a Learning Teaching Assistant in a secondary school. Cristina’s interest in inclusion is focused mainly on the deployment of human resources in schools and universities, with a particular interest in the area of knowledge management and intellectual capital.

    [1] I think it would be better to have these also as a list – see example later on

  • Cristina taught research methods on Foundation Degrees, BA (early childhood), and PGCE. She is the module leader for the MA ‘Research Methods in Education’ and she is currently the PhD admission manager for the School of Education with overall responsibility for PhD students’ experience and wellbeing. Cristina is also a member of quality assurance University wide-committees and a member of the University of Northampton’s Senate.

    She has successfully supervised 4 PhD students and she is currently supervising 9 PhD students.

    Membership of professional bodies and associations

    • Human Development and Capability Association
    • British Academy of Management
    • Society for Research in Higher Education
  • Cristina has collaborated as a research assistant and Principal Investigator to various projects focusing on post-compulsory education for adults with learning disabilities, commissioned study on the deployment and employment of Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTAs), impact of training TAs, developing mobile software technology for young people with autism, building research capacity in Higher Education in Ethiopia, and, transition to Further and Higher Education for people with disabilities in Ireland. She led the Success at School EU funded project (www.successatschool.eu) looking at re-engaging young people into education through volunteering experiences, and co-led the Newton Fund Early Career Researcher Links, an international cooperation between the University of Northampton and the Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil. She is now developing her interest in human resources further into the area of higher education specifically related to developing teaching and research capacity[1].

    Because of her interest in inclusion and higher education she has been a member of and consultant for a number of international projects and she is a member of the editorial board of two book series for Italian publishers.

    Cristina is a reviewer for a number of journals, and for the European Educational Research Association (EERA), and an ESRC evaluator. She was a research associate at the Von Hugel Institute, St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge she was for, five years, the coordinator of the Education thematic group for the Human Development and Capability Association. She is the co-founder and chair of the Cambridge Education Alumni Group.

    She is currently the deputy director of the Centre for Education and Research, School of Education, and a member of the China and Emerging Economies Centre (CEEC), Northampton Business School.

  • For publications, projects, datasets, research interests and activities, view Cristina Devecchi’s research profile on Pure, the University of Northampton’s Research Explorer.