Meet the ASK Team

Richard Bond
Richard Bond joined the ASK team in April 2017, having previously taught English Language and Study Skills for Engineering and also taught Academic Writing. Richard’s teaching experience includes Australia, the UK, Vietnam and China. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and his interests include the effects of internationalisation on pedagogy and Academic Writing. He has qualifications in Economics, Psychology, Education (specialising in TESOL) and an MA in Linguistics.
Richard is the Head of Academic Skills Development and ASK contact for the department of Arts and Humanities.

Craig Johnston
Craig Johnston joined the ASK team in 2018 having taught academic writing at several Higher Education institutions in the UK, Japan and the United States at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has a special interest in critical thinking, memorisation and reflective writing.
Craig is the ASK contact for the College of Health and Life Sciences.

Sandra Eyakware
Sandra Eyakware joined the ASK team in 2018, having taught academic writing at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at other Higher Education institutions in the UK. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has an interest in academic writing, dissertation writing and generally developing students’ writing style.
Sandra is the ASK contact for the College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences, in particular the departments of Business and Education.

Dr Elaine Pang
Elaine joined the ASK team in 2022, having previously worked at Lancaster University and the University of Nottingham’s campus in Malaysia. She has a background in TESOL, Study Skills and EAP, Teacher Education, Transnational Education and Educational Development. Elaine is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She graduated with a PhD in Education from the University of Warwick. Her fields of interests include TESOL, curriculum development, lifelong learning, self-regulated learning, MOOCs and SoTL.
Dr Elaine Pang is the ASK contact for the College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences.

Dr Inna Namestnikova
Dr Inna Namestnikova graduated from M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University where she was also awarded PhD in Applied Mathematics. She has many years experience of teaching mathematics at several Russian and British universities and joined Brunel in 2009. Her teaching interests include different areas of mathematics and her main research interests are in theoretical solid mechanics.
Inna is the adviser for Maths and Numeracy.

Dr Monica-Cristiana Hess
Dr Monica-Cristiana Hess (re)joined the ASK team in 2018, having previously worked at Brunel University London between 2015-2016. She has worked at different UK universities, supervising undergraduate dissertation projects and teaching on a variety of modules, including Research Methods and Statistics. Monica-Cristiana Hess is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and her teaching interests include quantitative research and working with statistical softwares such as SPSS and AMOS. She has qualifications in Psychology and Education.
Monica-Cristiana Hess is the adviser for Quantitative Research Methods, Statistics, and SPSS and the ASK contact for College of Health and Life Sciences.

Dr Noel Parnis
Noel joined the ASK team in August 2018, having previously supported quantitative and experimental research at the University of Essex, and worked in the telecoms industry. An electrical engineer by profession, Noel has a Masters degree in Information Systems and Telecommunications, and a PhD in Optical Network design. He has worked on collaborative pre-competitive research projects, as well as having held various senior positions in industry in the area of technology strategy. His teaching interests include Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, as well as using technology to analyse experimental data. He is particularly interested in research on network design and mathematical modelling. In his spare time Noel enjoys watching and coaching football, as well as reading a good book. Noel is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Dr Noel Parnis is the adviser for quantitative research, Statistics and SPSS.

Sara Jane Lambert
Sara Lambert joined the team in April 2022, having worked in Widening Participation as part of a UniConnect program and prior to this as a teacher of Business, ICT and computing in both UK schools and for Service Children’s Education in Germany. She has a particular interest in supporting students from underrepresented groups to achieve their educational ambitions.
Sara is the Academic Skills Transition Adviser and responsible for running the Peer Assisted Learning Program.

Veronica James
Veronica James joined the ASK team in 2015 and is the Administrator for the ASK Team.