Grace is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and holds a T&S Lectureship in the School of Medical Sciences. In her role as Programme Director for the MSc Molecular Pathology of Cancer programme, she is committed to advancing the curriculum and student experience. Additionally, Grace serves as the Education Lead for the International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection (ACED), where she collaborates on global initiatives to enhance cancer early detection strategies. She also leads two postgraduate units: Strategies for Early Detection and Diagnostic Molecular Pathology of Solid Cancers. Beyond her teaching responsibilities, Grace actively contributes to various committees, including the Education Committee, the Social Responsibility  Committee, and the PPIE FBMH Forum, demonstrating her dedication to fostering educational excellence and research in the field of cancer studies.

Before transitioning into her current role, Grace was a cancer researcher specialising in translational research across immunotherapy, radiotherapy, and the validation of novel imaging biomarkers for treatment response.

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Grace is a student-centred, inclusive and reflective educator, dedicated to nurturing the next generation of professionals in cancer research and oncology. Her discipline-specific teaching spans cancer biology, prevention and early detection, immunotherapy, and molecular pathology. She teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students through on-campus courses as well as online education designed for a global audience. Grace is an active member of the UK’s National Learning & Teaching Network and serves on the University of Manchester’s Scholarship of Teaching & Learning Steering Group.

Teaching Leadership:

• Programme Director MSc Molecular Pathology of Cancer
• Academic Lead Diagnostic Molecular Pathology of Solid Cancers
• Academic Lead Strategies for Early Detection
• Funder and Chair of DCS PD Forum
• Co-Chair DCS Education Committee
• PGT Student Voice Committee

Teaching Activities:

• Molecular Bases of Diseases and Cancer Biology - MSc Medical Imaging
• DMP Solid Cancers - MSc Molecular Pathology of Cancer
• Strategies for Early Detection - MSc Transformative Oncology and MSc Mol Path of Cancer
• Cancer Immunotherapy Tutorial – MSc Oncology Research
• MBChB PEP and APEP supervision
• UG Science Communication project supervision
• PGT research project co-supervision
• Academic advisor and mentor

Grace’s teaching philosophy is progressive and future-focused, grounded in her commitment to equipping students with the skills, mindset, and values needed to improve outcomes for cancer patients. With over a decade of experience in translational cancer research, she brings cutting-edge scientific developments and real-world case studies into the classroom, offering students practical, research-informed learning that prepares them for evolving challenges in oncology and healthcare.

At the heart of her approach is a dedication to inclusive and equitable education. She creates learning environments where every student feels valued, supported, and empowered. Her curriculum embeds principles of social responsibility and integrates Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE), cultivating compassionate professionals who are responsive to the needs of patients and communities.

Grace fosters a collaborative and respectful academic culture where students and educators can thrive together. Her ethos of individual excellence is shaped by a desire to uplift others and create meaningful impact through shared success. This inclusive, empowering vision also guides her engagement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, ensuring her educational practice continues to evolve and inspire.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Grace’s scholarly interests in education focus on advancing inclusive, student-centered pedagogies and enhancing programme-level design. Her key areas of interest include:

• Flexible and blended learning: Innovating and refining delivery model within the programme she leads as Programme Director, with a particular focus on achieving the right blend between in-person and online components to support accessible, inclusive, and high-quality education and enhance student experience.
• Assessment design and alignment: Ensuring that programme-level assessments are well-aligned, inclusive, authentic, and responsive to the evolving higher education landscape—providing all students with equitable opportunities for success.
• Student belonging and voice: Enhancing student experience and success by fostering a strong sense of community, encouraging active participation, and creating meaningful opportunities for skill development and CV-building—within and beyond the curriculum—to develop confident graduates prepared for the demands of an evolving job market. Also actively involving students in decision-making processes, promoting a sense of ownership, agency, and connection to their learning journey.

Grace has over 15 years of experience in translational cancer research, with a focus on targeted immunotherapies including T cell therapies, immune-modulatory approaches, and checkpoint inhibitors.

She pioneered a mammalian-based screening platform using bicistronic retroviral vectors to isolate tumour antigen-specific single-chain variable fragments (scFvs)—a critical component of chimeric immune receptor (CAR) T cell therapies. This innovation provided a more biologically relevant alternative to traditional phage display systems, enabling functional CAR selection in a mammalian context and advancing engineering of CARs for both haematological and solid tumour immunotherapies. Her work in this area was widely cited, including in nearly 70 patents, reflecting its lasting impact on next-generation cell immunotherapies.

She also contributed key preclinical evidence supporting the combination of TLR agonists with monoclonal antibodies in B-cell malignancies, demonstrating enhanced antitumor efficacy through NK and CD4+ T cell engagement. These findings helped catalyse clinical interest in immune-modulatory combination strategies.

In the field of radioimmunotherapy, she co-authored influential studies demonstrating that acquired resistance to fractionated radiotherapy could be overcome through PD-L1 blockade, providing key preclinical evidence for durable, immune-based treatment combinations. She later contributed to follow-up research showing that the synergy between radiotherapy and immunotherapy depends on dendritic cell–mediated activation of CD8+ T cells, helping to establish the mechanistic basis for combining these modalities in cancer therapy.

Additionally, she developed a strong interest in imaging biomarkers for treatment response. As part of a multidisciplinary team, she helped demonstrate that advanced diffusion-weighted MRI models could identify distinct tumour sub-regions and track their evolution during therapy. This work supported the potential for non-invasive, personalised treatment monitoring.

Grace regularly shared her research through open-access publications and presentations at leading international conferences across the UK, Europe, and the US. Her work has been widely cited, reflecting its lasting impact in the field.

• The National Learning and Teaching Focused Network
• Teaching and Scholarship Network
• Advance HE 
• Aurora Community
• Women's Higher Education Network
• NorthWest Women in STEM
• Manchester Immuno-Oncology Group
• British Society of Immunology
• British Association for Cancer Research
• European Association for Cancer Research
• FBMH PPIE Forum
• DCS Education Committee
• DCS SR Committee

• PG Cert in Higher Education, University of Manchester
• Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Advance HE
• New Academics Programme, University of Manchester
• Management Level 5 Award, Institute of Leadership & Management
• PhD Cancer Immunotherapy, University of Manchester
• MRes Functional Genomics, University of York
• MSc Chemistry and Biotechnology, University of Gdansk

• Manchester Access Programme Tutor (Widening Participation)
• SR Committee and PPIE Forum Member
• Promoting Careers in Science and Research in Local High Schools
• Science Communication: British Science Week, Open Days, U3A
• Embedding PPIE in curriculum
• Brilliant Club Tutor