Pam Denicolo

Professor Pam Denicolo, a chartered psychologist, has had a key role in the development of the University of Reading Graduate School system and in the development of the research student and post-registration professional practice element of the new School of Pharmacy. Her passion for supporting and developing graduate students is also demonstrated through her contributions as Vice Chair to the UK Council for Graduate Education Executive Committee, as chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education Postgraduate Network and Executive Editor of the Guides for Supervisors Series, and as a member of other national committees and working groups which, for example, review and evaluate the impact of the Roberts funded generic skills training, and the concordance of UK universities with the European Code and Charter.

She has supervised more than 50 doctoral students to successful completion, examined many more, and developed and led Research Methods Programmes for social scientists in her current and previous universities. Her research has been oriented by a commitment to understanding the way participants in learning processes construe their roles, situations and activities, through the use and development of Personal Construct Theory approaches and methods. An invited speaker at many international conferences, she has also worked with many universities in the UK and Eire, Canada, the USA, Australia and South East Asia and those in the Nordic Consortium of Universities, to develop academic staff and procedures for the support, training and assessment of doctoral candidates. She is currently involved with a network of colleagues in developing the Researcher Development Framework and in exploring the concept, and various manifestations, of doctorateness.