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DrKirsty Hemsworth

Skills Manager

Professional Services

Orcid identifier0009-0001-1460-3430
  • Skills Manager
    Professional Services

RESEARCH, INNOVATION & KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

My research and scholarly practice explore the intersections of academic literacies, partnership pedagogy, digital learning, and social justice in higher education. Key areas of interest include:

  • Student–staff partnership as emancipatory practice: partnership models in library and learning development settings; relationships between power, participation and co-creation; student voice as a driver for equitable curriculum design.

  • Inclusive and anti-deficit approaches to academic skills: tackling hidden curricula; widening participation; understanding help‑seeking behaviours; supporting Global Majority and other minoritised learners.

  • Digital learning and accessibility: asynchronous pedagogy; accessible resource design; technology-enhanced academic skills teaching; digital capabilities and confidence-building.

  • AI literacy and student behaviour: user experience approaches to GenAI; how students understand, problem-solve and navigate learning technologies; prompting as an academic literacy.

  • Participatory and practice-based research methodologies: co-authored, co-designed and student-led research; reflective and narrative methods; UX approaches within library pedagogy.

Across these areas, I am particularly interested in how libraries and learning development teams can challenge structural inequities by making academic practices visible, negotiable and co-created.