Queen Mary School of Engineering and Materials Science second-year undergraduate students Allegra Celesia and Muhie Al Haimus have been successful in securing the Student Enhanced Engagement and Development (SEED) Award from the Queen Mary Academy for their significant contributions as student research assistants on co-creational mathematics and engineering education projects supervised by Dr Rehan Shah.

Allegra gained experience with inclusive curriculum development, designed to improve students' educational experiences through facilitation of effective learning environments. As a student researcher working on the project titled 'Making diversity count: empowering students through co-creation of inclusive STEM curricula', she compiled and incorporated biographies of STEM professionals and employed her creative multimedia design skills to produce innovative presentations and digitised design posters. These are designed to increase students’ awareness of diverse representation and provide positive role models through exposure to mathematicians, scientists, and engineers from under-represented backgrounds. The developed resources have also been piloted to students in Dr Shah's first and second year undergraduate mathematics modules EMS412 and EMS506. The panel commended her "enthusiasm and commitment to the project and contributions to fostering an inclusive learning environment for students".

Muhie, on the other hand, spearheaded the co-creation of a Python Common Errors and Practice Questions toolkit to help new incoming first-year students studying EMS412 with additional guidance and support with Python, particularly those with no previous programming experience. The piloted toolkit has already received an overwhelmingly positive reception from students with over 190 responses on its feedback survey with comments such as "The practice questions are really useful, they allowed me to understand Python in a context outside of the Jupiter Hub environment" and "The toolkit was very organised, and I felt that I could independently go through the activities without any problems". The panel praised his "demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative to approach the academic and develop good resources in response to students’ needs, with its impact aptly exemplified by student feedback".

Both students, from the Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research have disseminated their work at the QMCUR undergraduate research showcase week in October and also presented to academic staff at the CREME-EECS Scholarship Exchange Webinar in November.