Our people

Alya Al-Hashmi

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: aa14719@bristol.ac.uk

Alya Al-Hashmi is currently in my fourth year of pursuing a PhD at Bristol University. Her research interests are centred on quality assurance in higher education, specifically focusing on its impact on the roles and identities of academics. She is particularly interested in understanding how quality assurance policies intersect with academic practices and influence broader educational systems and student experiences.

Alya’s research examines the effects of quality assurance on academics in Omani universities, with the goal of offering insights that can enhance policies and practices in Omani universities. Ultimately, her aim is to contribute to enhance the quality of education at Higher education through her research.

Bakhyt Altynbassov

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: gr19948@bristol.ac.uk

Bakhyt Altynbassov’s interest in corporate governance in higher education arose when he began working on his PhD in Law dissertation titled Legal issues of the educational process in Kazakhstan: theoretical and practical aspects, which he successfully defended in 2008 in Kazakhstan.

Bakhyt supervised several research projects on state grant funding, including: Enhancing the current legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan in higher and postgraduate education, and Legal aspect of the transformation of state universities into non-profit organisations in Kazakhstan. Additionally, he has been involved in several research projects to develop proposals for modifying and complementing the present HE legislation in Kazakhstan.

As PhD associate professor Bakhyt worked as deputy dean of the Law Faculty and head of the Department of Theory of State and Law of the Law faculty of Eurasian National University, named after L.N. Gumilyev. During the period between 2012 and 2015, he served as the director of the Research Centre for Educational Legislation, named after academic S. Zimanov at the university.

Bakhyt’s publications include around 130 research papers in Kazakh, Russian, and English, most of them related to educational law, legal regulation of HE and research, university corporate governance, the legal status of higher education institutions, and privatisation in HE.

Rodolfo Benites

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: rodolfo.benites@bristol.ac.uk

Rodolfo Benites is a doctoral researcher and a research associate at the Centre for Higher Education Transformations at the University of Bristol. His research interests include equity policies, stratification, and funding in higher education, technical and vocational education, and training in the world of work, meritocracy, and social justice.

For his Ph.D. project, Rodolfo explores the relationship between meritocracy and higher education by studying the academic experiences of working-class students in elite universities.

Rodolfo has more than ten years of experience in public policy, governance, higher education in the public sector, and international cooperation. He has an M.A. in Public Policy from King’s College London and a B.A. in Political Science and Government from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

Beth Cummings

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: beth.cummings@swansea.ac.uk

Beth Cummings is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Swansea University School of Management and is currently the Employability Lead for the school. She is a EdD candidate in Education: Learning, Leadership and Policy at Bristol University and holds an MSc in Marketing from University of Wales.

Beth is a Chartered Marketer and Vice Chair on the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Wales regional board, responsible for education and professional pathways. Her current research interests focus on employability and developing pedagogical practices that support this. Her most recent research has focused on regional development, purposeful ecosystems and the Well Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

Beth’s marketing interests focus on sustainability, consumer insights, branding and social media. She is particularly interested in the impact of social media on body image and wellbeing.

Lara Dzabolova

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: ld16691@bristol.ac.uk

Lara is a doctoral researcher at the School of Education, University of Bristol. Her research interests include sustainable futures, issues of social justice in relation to environmental crisis, politics of climate change, history of universities, the relationship between higher education institutions and climate crisis, as well as gender studies and queer theory.

Their PhD research looks at how/whether students and climate movements in universities in authoritarian regimes retain their autonomy and create spaces for resistance to mobilise universities towards sustainable futures. Lara also aims to explore how such climate movements can be supported by universities, climate groups and organisations internationally. Her research partners include Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, Climate Students Movement, and UNESCO Chair for the Training of Sustainable Development Professionals at Bordeaux Montaigne University.

Lara is a Master’s graduate of the School of Education, University of Bristol (2018, with distinction). Since graduation and before starting her PhD, Lara worked at a local university in her hometown Vladikavkaz, where they initiated and lead a volunteering climate movement Sansara, and founded one of the first Centres for Sustainable Development at a university in the country. The Centre worked closely with UN World Tourism Organisation and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, as well as several European universities, on introducing climate change education into the curriculum. Lara also worked as a teacher trainer on addressing climate change and social inequalities in the classroom.

Outside of academia, Lara is a book, music and coffee lover, an amateur creative writer and an occasional traveller.

Angel Fan

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: angel.fan@ln.edu.hk

Ms. Angel Fan, currently in her final year as a doctoral candidate at the University of Bristol, has over 17 years of experience in education. Ms. Fan’s research interests encompass the internationalization of curriculum, teaching English as a second language, and innovative pedagogy. She is a lecturer at Lingnan University’s Centre for English and Additional Languages (CEAL), where she instructs EAP courses and develops innovative pronunciation-focused pedagogy. Her career spans roles at The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Learning Enhancement and Research, where she contributed to research and teacher training programs. Notably, she mentored in the Beijing International Program for Teacher Development (2019-2020). Between 2014-19, she also took on various posts in Higher Education as a part-time Teaching Practicum Supervisor, Mentor for student teachers, and Instructor with The Faculty of Education at CUHK while teaching a distance linguistics course at Open University for six years.

Her dedication to quality education has been recognized through her Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (2023) and a Certificate of Merit in the Teaching Excellence Award Scheme (2024). In 2025, she was invited to join the International Journal of English Teaching and Learning as a reviewer, further acknowledging her expertise in English language education.

Minyan Hiam

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: m.hiam@bristol.ac.uk

Specialising in global partnerships and intercultural communication, Minyan’s research interests centre on the significance of academic visitor programmes in driving knowledge transfer within the context of practice-based and practice-led pedagogy in higher arts education.

Drawing from her extensive experience in International Trade and Investment, along with over a decade of experience in the higher education sector, spanning professional support services and teaching roles, Minyan brings a wealth of insight to her scholarly and entrepreneurial pursuits.

Recognising the transformative potential of collaboration, she has founded the Centre for International Visiting Artists and Scholars (IVAS) to advocate cross-disciplinary exchange and advance cultural dialogue. Her efforts highlight the importance of international connections in enriching academic discourse and promoting mutual learning.

Miaomiao Jia

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: jiam7@cardiff.ac.uk

Miaomiao Jia is pursuing a PhD in Education (Educational Sociology) with support from the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC). She holds a master’s degree in education (Policy and International Development) from the University of Bristol, graduating with First Class Honours. Her research focuses on international student mobility, graduate employability, labour market dynamics, and inequalities in international higher education, with a particular emphasis on how digital technologies impact these areas. She is actively engaged in online seminars hosted by CGHE, BERA, and SRHE, which align with her research interests.

Miaomiao has published several research articles in journals such as Educational Studies and presented at various international conferences, including The Asian Conference on Education and the International Geographical Congress (IGC). In addition to her research, she teaches “SI0420: Becoming a Social Scientist” as a Seminar Lecturer, holds the highest level of Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) certification, and has extensive experience teaching Japanese. Her international volunteer work has enriched her cultural perspectives. She is also a Gender and Sexualities Postgraduate Representative and contributes to the COST Action CA20115 Working Groups.

Ainur Suranchina

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: be18339@bristol.ac.uk

Ainur Suranchina is a first-year PhD student with a research focus on exploring university senior management experiences in transforming higher education institutions in Kazakhstan. She holds an MSc in Education Management from the University of Bristol, UK, and an MA in Translation Studies, as well as a BEd in Two Foreign Languages (English and Japanese) from the Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Her research interests include qualitative research, the Student Voice in education, and the enhancement of teaching and learning in higher education, with a particular emphasis on educational leadership and management. Her MSc dissertation, titled “Learning from students’ voices: an exploration of undergraduates’ experiences of teaching and learning in the classrooms in Kazakhstan,” reflects her commitment to understanding and improving student experiences in academic settings.
Before commencing her doctoral studies, Ainur held significant roles in the higher education sector, including Acting Dean, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, and Senior Lecturer. She has extensive experience in educational management and teaching and expertise in implementing student representation projects and conducting teacher training workshops. Recently, she has contributed as a part-time Student Voice coordinator for a project aimed at enhancing student engagement and satisfaction and as a language expert in English language teaching and teacher training for a UNICEF project. These roles have provided her with deep insights into academic management and leadership, which she now aims to further explore through her doctoral research.

Ainur is also a Bolashak scholarship holder, having been awarded this prestigious scholarship in 2016 for her MSc studies and again in 2023 for her PhD studies. She is fluent in Kazakh, Russian, and English, with a foundational knowledge of Japanese.

Nga Than

Doctoral researcher, CHET

Email: tt1161@bristol.ac.uk

Ms Nga Tran is a doctoral researcher at the School of Education, University of Bristol, specialising in higher education policy, management, and governance. Her ongoing PhD thesis focuses on governance reform in higher education and its impacts on the status and nature of public universities in Vietnam. Using neo-institutional theory and social justice theory, she aims to examine how autonomous public universities in Vietnam are changing and redefining their roles. Ms. Nga Tran’s research seeks to inform policy decisions and institutional practices of change.

Before coming to Bristol, Nga was a lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU-HCM, Vietnam. She was involved in small-scale projects focusing on quality assurance, teaching and learning in higher education, social innovation, and active citizenship.

Nga is also passionate about initiatives to improve the student experience and promote equity in higher education.