Catherine Robb is joining the new Student Advisory Forum established by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) to help enhance learning and teaching in higher education.

She is currently studying for a Masters in Continental Philosophy after being awarded a scholarship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She completed her undergraduate degree in 2012 at the University of Glasgow, graduating with a First Class Honours in Music and Philosophy.

Catherine’s main academic research interest is the implications of the relationship between the two broad philosophical areas of aesthetics and ethics.

As a member of the HEA Student Advisory Forum, Catherine hopes to contribute to enhancing the way higher education operates in the UK. She is particularly interested in how to maintain national standards of excellence and support while at the same time emphasising the importance of localised and specific educational frameworks. Catherine is looking forward to meeting other students with different educational experiences, and gaining a better understanding of what goes on behind the scenes within the HEA, and higher education in general.

The HEA has appointed 20 volunteer National Student Advisers to the Forum following a competitive recruitment process. Each of the advisers has demonstrated a keen interest in learning and teaching in higher education and will work in partnership with the HEA to contribute their perspectives to key issues in learning and teaching.

The forum gives advisers the opportunity to influence the work of a national body for learning and teaching, meet like-minded people and become more involved in the HEA’s work across the higher education sector.

The Student Advisory Forum is not a formal representative group but it does reflect the diversity of student experiences across the four nations of the UK. National student advisers come from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and institutions and include undergraduate and postgraduate students, those studying part and full time, and international and home students.