Over her career Pam has woven together her interest in the logic of science, a fascination with the human mind, an enthusiasm for adult education, and a love of evocative language. Having previously been an FE lecturer in A Level Chemistry, Biology, Environmental Science and Psychology, these perspectives were embedded in her ESRC-funded Surrey doctorate, exploring the use of figurative language to convey abstract meaning in science education.
As a chartered constructivist psychologist, she was appointed to contribute to, and eventually lead, a PGCEA (mainly for healthcare and community support professionals) and a distance MA (Teaching and Learning in HE). Her work at Surrey also encompassed academic staff development, frequently abroad for the British Council, and consultancy with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to develop their distance learning materials and professional registration examination, resulting in Honorary Membership of the Society. Her passion for improving doctoral education had been ignited and she established a multidisciplinary doctoral research methods programme and cross-institutional supervisor training.
Next came a move to the University of Reading to support the development of health and community care staff in engaging with research to obtain doctorates, publish and obtain funding to supervise their own doctoral researchers. In the 1990s she began contributing to and serving on several national and international executive committees, including the UKCGE, ISATT, Vitae, RIN, QAA, the European Personal Construct Association and the SRHE Postgraduate Interest Network. In the 2000s she established and ran a Graduate School, initially for the Social Sciences and Humanities, eventually encompassing all disciplines, and helped found a School of Pharmacy in which she led the Centre for Postgraduate and Professional Education and Training.
As well as publishing widely and providing workshops worldwide for supervisors and examiners, she herself has supervised to successful completion 60+ doctorates and examined over 200. Consequently, her retirement is filled with national and international consultancies on doctoral education, writing articles and books, providing presentations and workshops, editing and contributing to two book series devoted to Higher Education, predominantly Postgraduate Education, for Sage and for Brill, and being the executive editor of an international research methods online programme.