Biography
Dr Eva Malone is an immunologist with over 17 years’ experience of creating and delivering immunology learning materials and inspiring students. Her passionate and innovative approach to learning and teaching has been recognised by the Royal Society Biology (RSB) Scotland with an invitation to represent Biology Lectures/Teachers in a RSB initiative to promote careers in Biology to young people in Scotland (2018), with a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship which celebrates and recognises individuals who have made an outstanding impact on student outcomes and the teaching profession in Higher Education (2021) and by her students with an Edinburgh Napier Student Excellence Award for ‘Most Inspiring Lecturer’ (2022). Eva is an advocate for students and works to enhance the student experience at Edinburgh Napier in partnership with students. Most recently she has led a student-staff partnership to develop the Biological Sciences curriculum with a view to making the curriculum more inclusive. An output of this project was an Edinburgh Napier Library Guide, Building Inclusive Reading Lists. As programme leader of the Biological Sciences Undergraduate Programme Suite (2018 – 2023), she led the suite subject areas of Biomedical Science (non specific) (1/74; 97%) and Biological Sciences (1/34; 100%) to first place in the UK for student satisfaction in their respective categories of the 2022 National Student Survey. She has received invitations to share her leadership approach with colleagues across the sector, supporting the QAA Collaborative Cluster on Programme Leadership, and has made a significant impact on sector and institutional practice shaping the support provided to, and championing the role of programme leaders.
During her career, she has used her immunology expertise to collaborate, and publish, in the areas of exercise physiology and nanotoxicology. She was Acting Director of the Centre for Nano Safety 2013 – 2014, Associate Director 2014-2017 and in 2017, secured EU H2020 funding to develop reliable methodologies for better risk management of engineered biomaterials in Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products and/or Medical Devices (2017 – 2022; BIORIMA). More recently, she is working with Maynooth University and the Irish Cancer Society to advocate for HPV vaccination using educational workshops designed to communicate immunology to young people. The interdisciplinary team includes expertise in drama, product design, film making, education, immunology and behavioural psychology and the work has been funded by the Irish Research Council (2020) and Science Foundation Ireland (2023) and builds on Eva’s expertise in immunology, education, public engagement and interdisciplinary working. In 2021, Eva was invited to join INTER, an interdisciplinary collaborative project involving Edinburgh Napier University and SGN, supported by City Region Deal, Edinburgh and South East Scotland, to reimagine six old fossil fuel sites in Scotland. INTER was shortlisted in the AGCAS Building Effective Partnerships Award for Excellence and awarded the Herald Higher Education Awards, Partnership Award in 2022.
Career History:
Eva graduated from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth in 1999 with an Honours Biology degree and from Dublin City University in 2000 with an MSc in Biological Sciences. In 2001, she secured a position as Graduate Research Associate at the Institute for Immunological and Infection Research, at Edinburgh University. In post, she investigated the immune responses to filarial parasite, Litomoisodes sigmodontis. She left Edinburgh University, in 2002, to begin her PhD at Edinburgh Napier University investigating immune responses to the hookworm Nippostrongylus brasiliensis. Eva graduated from Edinburgh Napier University in 2006 and joined the University as a Lecturer in Immunology the same year. She was promoted to Associate Professor, on the Learning and Teaching Pathway, in 2019.