Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 25th February at 8pm GMT with guest Samantha Ahern to discuss “Shifting sands and professional identities in Higher Education”.

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Change in Higher Education always seems slow but is also always constant.  

Those that have been in the sector a while will have been through several regulatory changes, alongside internal changes within our institutions.

Humans are always at the centre of these changes. 

Technologies have always shaped how we interact, and our ways of working. We are currently seeing mass disruption across the board in teaching and assessment,

Research, professional services and our personal interactions.  This is alongside concerns around the financial sustainability of the sector. Many institutions, including my own, are undertaking 

initiatives that impact on the nature of our roles and our professional identities. Some of these changes are more optional than others.

Twice in my professional life I have had to reconsider my professional identity. The first was in December 2012, when I left the secondary classroom to join UCL.

Who was I if I was no longer a teacher?

The second time was Summer 2025 when my contract moved from our Digital Education team to the Centre for Advanced Research Computing.  I went from being a Senior Digital Research Trainer to a Senior PRISM.

A job title and description where education related activity is not the primary focus. Although my day-to-day role had not changed,  I had concerns around how the Job title would be perceived and difficulties reconciling 

my new professional identity. My first permanent job since graduating that didn’t feature education related words. I was very unsettled for a while and had a number of emotive discussions with various members of the ARC SLT.

In addition, I am working in an area where professional identities and career pathways are being shaped. That of digital research technology/technical professionals.  

Many of us are also by nature of our roles and expertise in third spaces.  As such, professional identities are regularly being renegotiated.

What is the interplay between our official job titles and our job roles? Which is more important with regards to our professional identities.

Speaker Bio

Samantha Ahern is the Education co-lead and for the Centre of Advanced Research Computing (ARC), UCL.  She is a Fellow of the University of London Centre for Online and Distance Education, a Trustee of the Society of Research Software Engineering, and both a Carpentries Instructor and Trainer, and is a member of The Carpentries Board of Directors.  Samantha’s research has focused on learning analytics and student wellbeing. She completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Kingston University, her MSc in Intelligent Systems at De Montfort University and both PGCE Secondary ICT and PGDip IT in Education at the Institute of Education, University of London.