Dr Faith Nightingale, Senior Lecturer and Director of Education at Queen Mary Engineering School (QMES) in Xi’an China, has successfully passed her doctorate.

With a thesis titled Developing Undergraduate Engineering Students' Soft Skills with an Interdisciplinary Set of Personal Development Planning Modules in a Chinese Transnational Education Setting: A Case Study, Dr Nightingale demonstrated her specialist knowledge of transnational education in China, earning the title of Doctor of Education from Nottingham Trent University.

Her thesis provides a model for Personal Development Planning and how it can be designed and implemented into any setting. It relates to current work within QMES as well as within QMUL and the wider HE community in terms of employability and graduate attributes. Her thesis discusses the importance of integrating professional skills into degree programmes at all levels using a tailored, interdisciplinary approach. This work identifies and addresses the gap within current literature and references current practice at QMES to showcase the value of developing students’ professional skills. The thesis focusses on engineering education in a transnational context which not only adds uniqueness to the study but also shows how other countries are also placing a clear emphasis on the development of soft skills to ensure all graduates are employable.

Faith said, “I'm excited to share my work and show the importance of developing professional skills by embedding them into the degree programme.”

This is an impressive feat as she completed her studies and research in just four years, while teaching at QMES in China.

Having passed her viva in March, she will graduate this summer.