Meet Dr. Carmen Corral and Sasha Carter, the new leadership team for the Quality and Standards network

We are delighted to share that Dr. Carmen Corral has been appointed as the Network Coordinator for our Quality and Standards network. In addition, Sasha Carter has been appointed as Deputy Network Coordinator. Find out more about them below!

About Dr Carmen Corral

2022 is my 25^th year of working in Higher Education. In that time, I have worked in a number of roles from research degrees to programmes officer and everything in between. I have also worked for HEIs of different types and size (both in the USA and England) from a Russell Group university to a Post-1992 university to private providers both large and small. I have been working in the area of Academic Quality for the past 14 years.  My current role as Senior Academic Quality Officer (Audit & Risk) entails collaborative working with internal stakeholders from across the university as well as a wide range of external stakeholders, including professional, statutory and regulatory bodies.

I have been an AUA member since 2017 and, during that time, have had the pleasure of: presenting a session on building bridges between academic quality and data at the 2019 AUA Annual Conference; writing a Newslink article on what to expect when moving from a large public provider to a small private provider; and coordinating the recording of an AUA Christmas single with the North Wales and North West Geographic Network. I also worked as the Deputy Network Coordinator for the Quality & Standards Themed Network for two years before becoming the Network Coordinator. It has been amazing to work with the vast AUA network on these and other projects!

This year, I am looking forward to working with our new Deputy Network Coordinator, Sasha Carter, to: continue to refine the aims and objectives of the Network; provide and signpost useful and informative resources and networking opportunities; and support Network members in their professional development endeavours.

About Sasha Carter

I have worked in Higher Education for four and a half years, starting out as an Academic Quality Officer at BPP University, then to managing the Quality Team, and now I am almost at my one-year anniversary in my current role as Head of Academic Quality at Ravensbourne University. Here I have oversight of the University’s academic quality function including the committee structure, academic policies and processes, course approval, external examining, collaborative partners and lots more. My career began as a Psychology teacher within an FE college, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I wanted a role that enabled me to help make a difference to the quality of the education students receive.

I have been a member of the AUA since 2018 and I was appointed as the Quality and Standards Deputy Network Coordinator in November 2021. I am very much looking forward to working with Carmen Corral, the Network Coordinator, to work with Network members to share and discuss existing practices and challenges related to quality and standards, and how we are all working to adapt to the ever-changing external regulatory landscape. I hope to meet many of you at conferences, informal lunch sessions and many more AUA Network events to come!