Mette Krogh Christensen’s long-held passion and expertise is to explore and support how professionals (e.g. educators, health professionals, elite sports coaches, talent developers) learn and perform in specialised and context-specific practices.
Mette has an academic background in the social sciences of sport and adult pedagogy. Her expertise revolves around the situational and social aspects of teaching and learning and the interplay between individual development and professional environments such as higher education, medical education and research education. In particular, she is engaged in exploring the process of developing and changing professional identities among academics in universities.
Being an experienced PhD supervisor within the fields of health sciences educations and sports science, she is engaged in the PhD students’ professional and personal development.
In her work as a knowledgeable educator and educational developer, Mette is rooted in John Dewey’s pragmatic theory of experiential learning and Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology.
Mette Krogh Christensen is the deputy chair of the Danish Network for Educational Development in Higher Education (2014-present), chair of The Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science Teaching award for universities “Undervisningsprisen” (2020-present), and member of The Swedish Research Council for Sport Science (2019-present).
Laura Cordes Felby works with and researches education and teaching development, focusing on transitions in the education system. Her research interests are curriculum development and analysis, didactics, pedagogy, social justice, career learning (employability), and transitions.
Laura Cordes Felby is currently researching how career learning is expressed across the political, programmatic, and practical curriculum level. Specifically, how various players in upper secondary school navigates in and interpret the paradox of ‘learning employability’ in a changing society. Her research revolves around how career learning is ‘done’ in upper secondary school – that is, how career learning is expressed in different subjects.
Laura Cordes Felby’s research forms the basis for an expanded understanding of how career learning is didactically expressed in upper secondary school, what potentials and challenges lie in having career learning as a learning goal in a changing society, and how this abstract educational ideal can be transformed into actual teaching. Her focus on this will strengthen both educators’ and students’ experiences and reflections on teaching career learning.
The focus of Louise Binow Kjær’s work and research is practice-based learning. Her interests lie mainly within the field of health profession education, e.g., clinical learning environments, autonomy-supportive supervision, transitions, and professional development.
Louise Binow Kjær is currently researching the interaction between students, supervisors, and patients. She uses qualitative methods to explore three levels in the clinical learning environment: the learning activity level is examined through patient experiences of student consultations, the learning environment level is examined through supervision practice with the use of self-determination theory, and at the structural level, she uses the theory of practice architectures to analyse how sayings, doings, and relatings in the learning environment enable and constrain student participation.
Louise Binow Kjær has a background as MSc in political science, and she has worked with educational development since 2011. In 2011-2019, she was the driving force in the development and implementation of a 30 ECTS course in professionalism at the master’s program in medicine. She has also been involved in high-profile development projects at AU, such as planning and implementing an international semester at the master’s program in medicine.
Louise is an experienced communication skills and peer supervision educator. She is also a member of the board of the Danish Society for Medical Education (2018-now).
Sanna Lassen has a Master's degree in educational sociology from the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, and a PhD from the University of Southern Denmark. Her primary research field is within educational leadership especially focussing on employees who are formally appointed to handle teaching and educational development without having any formal decision authority. Sanna Lassen has a perennial interest in and knowledge of how educational institutions organise themselves to deal with everyday complex issues.
Sanna Lassen has both a practical and academic background in management and leadership. This affects her research, which is both exploratory and at the same time aimed at producing practice-oriented research that can be helpful for practice. On this basis, she is engaged with generating context-sensitive research that, through general characteristics, can construct resonance in specific practices.
She draws on this perspective in her work as an experienced teacher, primarily in the ongoing education of managers and leaders as well as a teacher of PhD students where she pays special attention to making teaching practice-oriented while offering different and new perspectives.
Theoretically, Sanna Lassen is rooted in the systems theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Via his organisational view, it is possible to observe what meaning different roles and functions are attributed in organisations. Through this, a qualified perspective for context-specific support can be constructed.
As a junior researcher, Sanna Lassen is involved in establishing networks on educational leadership across Danish universities, across countries, and educational institutions to observe generic attributes as well as functional equivalents within educational leadership.
Berit Lassesen is a Master of Science in Political Science from the Department of Political Science and a PhD from the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus University.
During her career as an educational developer, Berit Lassesen has focused on the interplay between the university students’ learning processes and learning outcomes, including prerequisites and interest in the field of study and, for example, the effect of the use of student-activating teaching for the development of the students’ motivation, motives, and acquisition of knowledge. The inspiration for Berit Lassesen’s research often arises in connection with the collaboration between educators and students
Among many methods, Berit Lassesen has worked extensively on the development and validation of questionnaires, which constitute an essential element in research and evaluation projects relating to teaching and learning, which, for example, is expressed through the systematic work on the establishment of a joint teaching-assessment system at Aarhus University. An initiative that provides knowledge that can contribute to the further development of the quality of teaching and learning at Aarhus University.
Currently, Berit Lassesen is researching, among other things, 1) student agency, which is presented as one of the OECD’s 2030 education targets, which can equip students with the knowledge and skills they need after completing their studies, and 2) a study of quality-development processes per se, including the organisation of these and their effects.
Peter Musaeus’ passion stems from the fundamental riddle about how the curriculum in higher education shapes students learning. Specifically, he researches health professionals’ learning and decision-making. He is engaged in providing PhD students and VIP at AU the right tools to improve their teaching. Peter Musaeus researches and supervises PhD students, especially within pre-graduate and postgraduate health professional learning.
Peter Musaeus has collaborated with physicians, engineers, and psychologists to bridge epistemology and empirical research methodologies. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Central Florida, UC Berkeley, the University of Sussex, Virginia Tech, and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Peter Musaeus has a background as a clinician and licensed psychologist, a board member of the Danish Society for Medical Education (DSMU), and a project manager in COST, EU.
Kamilla Pedersen studies how patient representations in health sciences curriculums affects students’ transition to clinical practice. She is particularly interested in contributing to the integration of basic medical knowledge concerning patient-centred insight in clinical teaching.
Kamilla Pedersen’s research is driven by a fascination with clinical communication and interpersonal competencies as a fundamental assessment core within health sciences. A recurrent theme in her research has been health professionals’ transitions from preparatory teaching and training to clinical environments, with a particular interest in clinical psychiatry.
Kamilla Pedersen is the founder of the simulation-based teaching concept PsychSim, which uses video-based virtual patient cases to depict clinical meetings between simulated patients and health professionals.
An interdisciplinary educational background and experience as a PhD in Medical Education, an MA in Educational Anthropology, and BScN nurse qualifies her area of research and contributes to the generation of innovative approaches and multidisciplinary perspectives in her field.
Emilie Leth Rasmussen is a dentist and PhD student. She graduated as a dentist from Aarhus University in 2015. In parallel with her PhD, she works in practice once a week.
Her main interest is research within dental degree programmes, including the development of dental degree programmes and clinical learning.
Emilie Leth Rasmussen is particularly interested in clinical decision-making and the importance of reflection. The purpose of her PhD project is to contribute to new knowledge about how clinic decision-making can be stimulated by reflection and self-evaluation in dental students, including the impact and application of reflection in clinical practice.
Emilie Leth Rasmussen is also interested in curriculum and educational development, focusing on the clinical field from which the idea for her PhD project originates.
Sarah Robinson is an Associate Professor and Educational Anthropologist interested in the purpose of Higher Education and the future of the university. Her ethnographic research spans curriculum reform, policy in practice, ethnographic methods, educator agency, and enterprise education as value creation.
Sarah Robinson has a strong international profile and has published widely within educational research. Recently her research in enterprise education has lead to an exploration of the role and purpose of the university. This has resulted in publications in The Thinking University: A Philosophical Examination of Thought and Higher Education (Bengtsen, S. & Barnett, R.; 2018) and The Idea of the University: Volume 2 – Contemporary Perspectives (Peters, M. A., & Barnett, R.; 2018). Furthermore, Sarah is a co-author on Teacher Agency; An ecological approach (Priestley, Biesta & Robinson; 2015).
Sarah Robinson is on the board of the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society (PaTHES), initiating the annual conference, webinars, and other events that bring together international cross-disciplinary scholars interested in Higher Education reforms.
Currently, she is working with the development of a pedagogy for change-making that combines an exploration of academic identity and development with processes from enterprise education.
