Presenters

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Barry D'Souza

Barry is an Associate Lecturer and Practice Tutor with the OU where he continues to support students and apprentices to achieve a wide range of academic and vocational based qualifications. He is also Managing Director of Walking Among Giants – a capacity building enterprise serving the needs of entrepreneurs, managers and leaders across the UK and the Iberian Peninsula.
Away from work, Barry divides his time between spending time with family and friends and shooting content for his upcoming YouTube Channel “Curry and Rice and All Things Spice”

Becki Overton

Becki has worked at the OU for 4 years and has been in the Disability Support Team since 2022. Since joining the University, all of her roles have focussed on Student Support. Prior to working at the OU, Becki's background was in the Charity Sector, working and volunteering for a range of education and youth charities. Becki considers herself to come from an “OU family”; her mum studied her MBA with the OU, and her dad worked as an Associate Lecturer. It has always felt important to her to work in organisations with a strong social mission, and the OU definitely ticks that box!

Becky Eaton-Garrett

I’m Becky, the Campaigns Officer for PLEXUS. I came to PLEXUS after appearing on a live event for Mental Health Day and am currently studying for my Master of Laws. I will soon start training for my new job working in a prison; this is a job I have wanted to do for many years, and I’m excited about finally getting to do it. I am a single parent to a 6-year-old son and in my spare time, I play prop for Harlequin Ladies Rugby Team.

Ben Lampart

Biography to follow.

Ben Langdown

Dr Ben Langdown is a lecturer in Sports Coaching at The Open University and is chair of E236 Applying sport and exercise sciences to coaching.

Ben’s research passion lies within the areas of strength and conditioning, athlete monitoring and youth development. Most of his research, including his PhD, has focused on the sport of golf and Ben is currently leading an athlete monitoring mobile app project for golfers, called AMI Sports.

Alongside his OU position, Ben applies his research through his role as the West Midlands Strength and Conditioning Coach for England Golf and when working with other amateurs and touring professionals.

Besides golf, his other sporting passion is hockey, which he plays on a regular basis through the winter season.

Ben has previously appeared on SHL presenting the Augmented Reality apps used in Sport and Fitness modules and also to discuss the use of nutrition for studying.

Ben Lennon

Ben has been working in Social Media in various roles for over 10 years, and before joining The OU worked for companies such as Land Rover and Betfair. He joined The OU as Social Media Manager during the height of the Covid pandemic in July 2020, and as a result didn’t meet his team in person until around 9 months later. Working as part of the Social Media Engagement Team, Ben looks after the OU’s Social Media channels with a particular focus on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. He is also responsible for our BBC co-production social activity and has worked on projects such as Wild Isles and Blue Planet 2. He even had the chance to interview Joe Wicks as part of the activity around his documentary on mental health!

Ben Melluish

Ben Melluish is a Student Experience Manager at The Open University and is currently working on the modules B100 and B205. Ben is passionate about education and has gained many different qualifications throughout his career. He is about to embark upon his MBA in 2018 – wish him luck!

Ben is a real self-confessed foodie and loves to combine his love for food with his passion for travelling and exploring new places. He hopes to be able to juggle all of his passions once he enrols on his MBA programme in 2018!

Ben Wood

Ben is the Engagement & Insight Manager for OpenLearn, the free learning platform of The Open University, working with colleagues across the OU to share OpenLearn’s resources and achievements and supporting the OpenLearn team, academics and external partners with data about the platform and its content. He has been in the role four years, having spent the first 20 years of his career as a journalist and editor covering a diverse range of subjects in the consumer, B2B and environmental sectors.

Bernard Coen

Hi, I’m Bernard Coen. I’m 52, originally from Manchester, married with three children and I work in Research and Academic Strategy (RAS).

I support planning and reporting and our team helps manage the budgets and financial monitoring, including funds for strategic research activity. Within the Unit our team leads on internal and external communications (see https://www.open.ac.uk/research/). I chair a group coordinating work in this area along with engaging our stakeholders and looking at the quality of the service we provide. I work closely with the people who have general oversight of administrative functions of the Unit, as well as facilitating all personnel related activity including staff development.

Bethan Michael-Fox

Dr Bethan Michael-Fox is a Staff Tutor in English Literature at the Open University, where she has worked since January 2018. Since them Bethan has worked on Y031 Access Arts and Languages, A112 Cultures, L101 Introducing English Language Studies, A223 Telling Stories: The Novel and Beyond, YXM130 Making Your Learning Count and A105 Voices, Texts and Material Culture.

Bethan is also involved in the Write Now project at the Open University, focused on writing workshops for student to build communities of writing and develop confidence in academic writing. She also researches in the academic field of Death Studies, where her work focuses on representations of death, loss and the dead in film, television and literature, and she is the co-host of The Death Studies Podcast.

Bev Smit

Bev started studying at the Open University around 2011, and finally graduated in English Literature in 2020. Studying had it's ups and downs for her. One minute she had no obligations, the next, she found herself a carer for her parents and then for her aunt and uncle. So she knows how it feels to defer and even to fail a module. Now she has decided to study for a BA in History, and is in her second year.

Bev is an active member of the Students Association. She holds meet ups and social online events. Her role as Faculty rep ended in July, and now she is a Central Committee Rep and sits on BoS and Teaching Committee for Arts and Social Sciences.

She lives with her angst ridden rescue mongrel dog Bert who usually appears at online events but he forces her to do her 10,000 steps a day which keeps her fit(ish) and in her spare time she also volunteers at her local library.

Billy Docherty

Billy Docherty is a volunteer with the Open University Students’ Association.

Björn Claes

Björn is a Senior Lecturer in Operations Management and is currently the Teaching Director for the Masters Programmes in The Open University Business School. He joined the faculty in January 2012 from Cranfield School of Management. He holds a Ph.D. and an International MBA from IE Business School in Madrid, Spain.

Björn's research interests are in the human factors in Operations and Supply Chain Management and business processes in general. Beyond this, he researches social evaluations underlying legitimacy judgment formation processes. His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Management Studies, Human Resource Management, Industrial Marketing Management, International Journal of Production Economics, Prometheus, and Supply Chain Forum, among others.

Bláithín Hurley

Dr Bláithín Hurley has a PhD in History of Art from University of Cambridge (2016), an MA in History of Art from University of Warwick (2009) and a BA in History of Art and Music (Joint Honours) from University College Cork (2008). Bláithín has wide-ranging interests from the portrayal of music in sixteenth-century Venetian art to the appropriation of non-Irish cultures by the Irish during colonial times. To date her publications have reflected her research into Italian Renaissance Art, but her immediately forthcoming articles focus on early-modern Irish artistic subjects.

Bryn Jeffery

Bryn has worked at the OU for five years in various roles, including in Residential Schools and the School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care. They are currently a curriculum manager in Access. In their spare time they love photography, writing speculative fiction, and dipping their toe into amateur film-making.

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