2022 Speakers

Sarah Corcoran

Sarah Corcoran is Director of eAssessment Transformation and responsible for ACCA’s overall digital assessment strategy. She is passionate about the ways in which technology can help transform both learning and assessment practices and have a real impact on students’ learning experience and future performance in the workplace. Sarah has written numerous papers and articles about trends in the application of technology in assessment and learning and has presented them at conferences across the world. In 2000, her team was awarded the highly prestigious European Academic Software Award for an innovative multilingual assessment and learning software package.
Prior to her current role, Sarah worked for Cambridge Assessment, Europe’s largest assessment provider, where she held several roles varying from Customer Services Director (responsible for supporting customers across the world) and Head of Transformation (responsible for the development and implementation of the organisation’s digital and change strategy). ACCA's strapline is 'Think Ahead' and, in keeping with this, Sarah is currently focused on building and implementing the ACCA Qualification of the Future.
Sarah holds an undergraduate degree in Education from Cambridge University (majoring in Educational Assessment) and a Masters in Business Administration from the London Business School.

Professor Phillip Dawson

Professor Phillip (Phill) Dawson is the Associate Director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University. Phill has degrees in education, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and he leads CRADLE’s work on cheating, academic integrity and assessment security. This work spans  hacking and cheating in online exams, training academics to detect contract cheating, student use of study drugs, the effectiveness of legislation at stopping cheating, and  the evaluation of new assessment security technologies. His two latest books are Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World: Preventing E-Cheating and Supporting Academic Integrity in Higher Education (Routledge, 2021) and the co-edited volume Re-imagining University Assessment in a Digital World (Springer, 2020). Phill’s work on cheating is part of his broader research into assessment, which includes work on assessment design and feedback. In his spare time Phill performs improv comedy and produces the academia-themed comedy show The Peer Revue.

Dan Howard

Dan has worked in the employability and skills sector for over 12 years. Passionate about the life-changing power of education, Dan actively collaborates with key influencers in the skills and employability industry to ensure NCFE offers the best curriculum, products and services to promote and advance learning for all.
As Operations Director for Learning for Work at educational charity NCFE, Dan manages the delivery of the learning for work product portfolio, which supports individuals to progress and excel in their careers, as well as providing employers with a highly skilled and productive workforce.
Prior to its integration into NCFE in 2021, Dan was also Managing Director at Skills Forward. He led the repositioning of Skills Forward in the sector, shaping and growing the business to become an award winning market leader in educational assessment, and skills resources.
After graduating with a degree in business management and employment law, Dan went on to work within Welfare to Work, supporting long-term unemployed individuals back into work in some of the most socially deprived areas of the UK. He has since worked across the employability and skills sector, holding senior positions in FE colleges and independent training providers, implementing and successfully managing complex government-funded contracts. This has included navigation of Skills Reform and national roll-out of the Apprenticeship Levy.
Dan is a member of the Institute of Directors and has recently been awarded a fellowship of both the Institute of Employability Professionals, and Chartered Management Institute. He is currently a judge for the BAME Apprenticeship Awards and a Patron of the BAME Apprenticeship Alliance, and has sat on several LEP committees driving skills, inclusion, and social mobility. Dan is also chair of governors for a school in East Yorkshire, which was the primary school where his own education began.
Dan has a reputation for customer focus, delivering excellent quality, and driving high levels of performance. This professional reputation is reflected in his personal commitment to lifelong learning, and he has just completed his Level 7 in Strategic Leadership.
In addition, Dan is a champion of equality and diversity, and is Chair of NCFE’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee.

Dr Donald Lancaster

Having driven corporate and marketing success for advertising agencies over 35 years in many parts of the world, Donald has significant experience and expertise in the practice of marketing communications, management, leadership, presentation, coaching and training, alongside other skills. He led well-known agency offices such as JWT, Ogilvy and Lowe, working with diverse brands including HSBC, Unilever, P&G, Mars, Mazda and Toyota.
Curiosity led Don to translate and test some of that practice experience into more theoretical areas through Doctoral research. His PhD unearthed new insights into the relationships between global advertisers and their agencies, bringing some first-hand field knowledge into academia, applying academic theory to new areas of the practitioner arena.  He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority, Fellow of the Worshipful Company of Marketors and a Certified Management & Business Educator, and lectures in Marketing, Advertising and Brand Management.
In his Leadership role, he has wholly renewed the Executive MBA programme, refined the Full-time MBA, and sits on several boards and managerial committees within the School of Management.
In 2018, Donald pioneered the use of digital examination technology at Bath, running many high-stakes tests over two years. This enabled the University to rapidly adopt an e-exam platform across the institution as the pandemic took hold.

Claudia Bickford-Smith

Claudia Bickford-Smith brings over 30 years’ experience of developing learning content and assessment solutions across a wide range of local and international contexts and has developed bespoke curricula, assessments, consultancy and training for Ministries of Education.
As Director of Education Services at Oxford University Press, Claudia Bickford-Smith oversees Assessment and Impact services across international and local businesses. She is partnering with some of the world’s biggest online platforms to deliver standardized assessments, also developing competency-based assessments to match reform requirements in countries with large student cohorts.
Her team also oversees the development of the OECD’s PISA new Science Framework, for global assessment in 2025.
Claudia oversees short- to longer-term strategies and accompanying roadmaps for innovation in digital assessments and services, working closely with technology partners to define test-delivery needs (authoring, item bank and meta data), data strategy on learner performance, and best-practice vendor selection.
Claudia previously worked for Cambridge University Press and Assessment as Director of Development where she oversaw the modernization of the portfolio of international qualifications, ensuring learning outcomes aligned with assessment objectives, while also matching assessment requirements to technical capabilities (test delivery including auto marking, human marking, student and institutional reporting as well as benchmarking), updating processes and procedures documentation to support this.

Patrick Craven

Patrick has over 30 years’ experience in the field of accreditation, assessment design and educational technology. Qualified as a Graphic Designer, he began his career designing educational resources with government agencies MESU/NCET and BECTa to running of post-sales technology support departments with Apple Computer.  His career has always addressed the fusion of education, skills development and assessment technologies.
For the last 20 years this work has focus ed on the specific field of learning and assessment research and development linked to government policy and national accreditation programmes.  This has spanned work with global awarding bodies, such as the RSA Examinations Board, OCR Examinations and Cambridge Assessment Group.
He now leads on Strategic Partnerships, Stakeholder Engagement and Policy work for the City and Guilds Group. The role considers the growing impact of economic and skills policy and new technologies on the education and training industry. It also identifies initiatives to enable City & Guilds to develop and extend their charitable purpose and impact to ensure that learners, employers and the economy can realise their full productivity potential.

Jarret Dyer

Jarret Dyer is an experienced Testing Center Administrator with over 18 years of industry experience. He is a past President of the National College Testing Association (NCTA), Chair of Academic Integrity and Testing and serves on the ATP-NCTA Remote Proctoring (e-Proctoring) Standards Management Committee. He has been a featured speaker, debate panellist and industry expert on remote proctoring and test administration. He has consulted, developed and implemented test security plans for major US agencies. His research interests focus on test administration, test security, and academic integrity. His most recent publications focus on gamifying academic integrity and academic misconduct during the COVID19 pandemic.
Jarret serves on multiple industry committees, including the Test Proctor Certification (NCTA), Online Proctoring Standards and Proctoring Best Practices (NCTA/ATP) committees. He frequently presents at NCTA, Association of Test Publishers (ATP), European Network of Academic Integrity (ENAI), European Association of Test Publishers (E-ATP) and the Conference on Test Security (COTS).

Eunice McAllister

As Account Director with PSI Eunice is responsible for maximising the success of strategic clients’ high stakes multi modal test programmes in PSI and thereby maximise their global business growth potential. Working closely with a range of teams within clients, Eunice seeks to stay one step ahead of what they may need. Eunice has worked in the assessment sector for over 20 years, both on the client side working for an international UK Awarding Organisation with responsibility for growing their certification across China and ASEAN markets, and on the testing services provider side, enabling Awarding Organisations to deliver their tests worldwide across a range of modalities. Eunice has been an active member of the e-Assessment Association since 2019 and has an Honours Degree in Marketing and Modern Languages and is a Chartered Marketer with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Paul Muir

Paul Muir is Head of Technology Enabled Assessment at the British Council and responsible for the British Council’s technology enabled assessment strategy and delivery of technology led assessment solutions in over 140 countries around the world and to over 4.5 million students a year. Joining the British Council in 2015, Paul has worked in the assessment industry for over 20 years, in roles delivering education and curriculum reform projects across the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to transformational roles at Awarding Bodies and Regulators in the UK. Paul is a board member of the e-Assessment Association and an active member of ATP and a member of ATP’s Security Committee. Paul has a passion for enhancing access to education globally using technology, especially in parts of the world where this is not always the ‘easy’ path and where innovative and more unique ways of working can be rewarded.

Claudia Bickford-Smith

Claudia Bickford-Smith brings over 30 years’ experience of developing learning content and assessment solutions across a wide range of local and international contexts and has developed bespoke curricula, assessments, consultancy and training for Ministries of Education.
As Director of Education Services at Oxford University Press, Claudia Bickford-Smith oversees Assessment and Impact services across international and local businesses. She is partnering with some of the world’s biggest online platforms to deliver standardized assessments, also developing competency-based assessments to match reform requirements in countries with large student cohorts.
Her team also oversees the development of the OECD’s PISA new Science Framework, for global assessment in 2025.
Claudia oversees short- to longer-term strategies and accompanying roadmaps for innovation in digital assessments and services, working closely with technology partners to define test-delivery needs (authoring, item bank and meta data), data strategy on learner performance, and best-practice vendor selection.
Claudia previously worked for Cambridge University Press and Assessment as Director of Development where she oversaw the modernization of the portfolio of international qualifications, ensuring learning outcomes aligned with assessment objectives, while also matching assessment requirements to technical capabilities (test delivery including auto marking, human marking, student and institutional reporting as well as benchmarking), updating processes and procedures documentation to support this.

Dr Sandy Heldsinger

Dr Sandy Heldsinger is leading the implementation of the Brightpath assessment and reporting software in schools.
Sandy co-ordinated the WA system-level assessments, has taught masters level course in educational assessment for a number of years and has led the development of a wide range of resources, including reporting software, to support schools in using assessment to improve student performance.
Sandy developed central components of the Western Australian Curriculum Outline for WA’s School Curriculum and Standards Authority and she co-authored What teachers need to know about assessment and reporting which was published by the Australian Council for Educational Research.

Vali Huseyn

Paul Muir

Paul Muir is Head of Technology Enabled Assessment at the British Council and responsible for the British Council’s technology enabled assessment strategy and delivery of technology led assessment solutions in over 140 countries around the world and to over 4.5 million students a year. Joining the British Council in 2015, Paul has worked in the assessment industry for over 20 years, in roles delivering education and curriculum reform projects across the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to transformational roles at Awarding Bodies and Regulators in the UK. Paul is a board member of the e-Assessment Association and an active member of ATP and a member of ATP’s Security Committee. Paul has a passion for enhancing access to education globally using technology, especially in parts of the world where this is not always the ‘easy’ path and where innovative and more unique ways of working can be rewarded.

Dean Seabrook

A former teacher, Dean has worked on high-profile reform projects in construction and the built environment and digital technology in his four years at Qualifications Wales. In each project, Dean has supported the introduction of innovative assessments that have deeply embedded digital technologies within national qualifications. As part of the Policy and Reform team, Dean is now exploring the impact of digital technologies on assessment and the ways in which the qualification system can harness them to create a flexible and up-to-date assessment system that fully engages learners and allows them to best demonstrate their abilities.

Gwyneth Toolan

Gwyneth is currently managing a new exam malpractice service within the assessment innovation space at RM. Having taught in international and state schools, been Head of Sixth form and an assessment product manager at Cambridge University’s exam board, she brings her broad teaching and assessment expertise to ensure excellent user experience is at the heart of product development at RM. She still advises on and promotes digital assessment in her role as Assessment Ambassador for the Cambridge Assessment Network.

Dr Mick Walker

Mick’s teaching career extended over eighteen years including work in secondary, sixth form and Further Education institutions as well as work in Higher Education as an external examiner. He has worked as a local education authority advisory teacher and as a general adviser working with primary and secondary schools. Throughout his career, he has been closely associated with the assessment system holding the posts of chief examiner, senior moderator, and external university examiner.
Mick joined the National Curriculum Council in 1992 and worked on several iterations of the National Curriculum and non-statutory guidance. Following his position as head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s (QCA) regulatory monitoring programme of general and vocational awarding bodies, Mick played a key role in the National Assessment Authority’s (NAA) modernisation programme leading on support for examiner recruitment and recognition of their professional status through the formation of what is now the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA). Following delivery failures of national curriculum tests in 2008, Mick took on the post of Acting Managing Director of the NAA and is credited with re-building the national curriculum assessment system. A former acting Director of QCA and Executive Director of Education at the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), Mick was accountable for National Curriculum assessments, supporting the delivery of general qualifications and oversight of the National Curriculum. He was an adviser to the DfE Expert Group on Assessment in 2009 and supported the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) Commission on Assessment in 2014. Mick was a member of the DfE Independent Teacher Workload Review Group and an adviser to the DfE Workload Team. He has acted as an Associate Director of the AQA awarding body, an Adviser to the Welsh Government, the Punjab Examination Commission, PwC and is currently a member of the Pearson Future of Qualifications and Assessment Expert Panel. Mick is President of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA), Chair of the Evidence Based Education (EBE) Advisory Board and Chairs the Assessment Committee of the Institute of Directors (IoD). He was a member of the Joint Council for Qualifications’ (JCQ) Commission on Malpractice in Public Examinations and has advised the DfE Educational Technology and Data Policy Teams. Mick is a lay member of the Health Research Authority Ethics Committee and lay member of the University of Leeds Business, Environment and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee. He has chaired and presented to numerous conferences and lead training on education and assessment to a range of organisations in the UK and aboard.
Mick holds a PhD in educational assessment from the University of Leeds and degrees at Master’s and Bachelor levels. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, and a Fellow of the CIEA. He is passionate about education and aligning the aims of national high-volume assessment and testing systems with the aims and realities of everyday teaching and learning in schools, colleges, and the workplace to benefit society and to support each individual learner to reach their true potential.

Bill West

A 28-year veteran of the assessment industry, Bill West serves as Senior Vice President, Business Development for Examity, a global leader in online proctoring services. Westd has previously held market‐facing leadership positions with Pearson VUE, the International Joint Commission on Allied Health Professionals in Ophthalmology (IJCAHPO), and BrightLink. West has implemented, managed, and grown high stakes assessment programs in healthcare, IT, finance, trades, admissions, federal agencies, and many other markets, for development and administration, both domestic and global. He has been a key contributor to industry associations, including the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE), the Association of Test Publishers, the Performance Testing Council, and the Certification Network Group, where he has volunteered on committees, spoke at and led conferences, and served on boards. He currently serves on the board of directors for ICE.

John Winkley

John is AlphaPlus’ Commercial Director. He leads the work with clients prior to and during a project’s initial phases, and leads the team developing client proposals.
John is an experienced learning and assessment entrepreneur with a track record of business growth. He has specialised in developing innovative systems for education and assessment, working with a range of public and private sector clients through the three companies he has helped to build: BTL Group Ltd, Virtual College plc and AlphaPlus.
AlphaPlus’ work has involved developing and deploying novel solutions for curriculum, assessment and e-assessment in schools, further education, professional education and lifelong learning sectors. Projects range from large scale high stakes examinations systems and content to highly innovative approaches to formative assessment. He has spoken widely at UK and international conferences on technology and assessment.
John spent 11 years with BTL Group Ltd who provide Surpass, the market-leading professional end-to-end on-screen assessment platform, and Virtual College , a leading online learning provider with over 4m registered learners. He joined AlphaPlus in 2006 with the objective of developing it into a leading provider of educational assessment.
John was a founding director of the eAssessment Association. John has been a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Assessors since 2010, recognising the highest level of expertise and experience in assessment. John is a National Leader of Governance, and Chair of The Beckfoot Trust, a Multi-Academy Trust comprising 10 schools, 7500 students and 1100 staff across primary, secondary, and special school provision. He has led this innovative and well-regarded school trust since its inception in 2013.
John has a BSC and MEng in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bath. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors.

Anand Karat

Anand Karat is an engineer, entrepreneur, recreational violinist, and the CEO of Vretta – a multi-award winning EdTech company, that has been instrumental in transforming the learning and assessment experiences in numerous jurisdictions around the world. Anand lives by his motto Innovatively Now, and has spent the past 20 years contributing to the transformation of organisational processes through innovation in technology. He collaborates with ministries, examination bodies, and academic institutions, and supports them through their transformation to modernised large-scale e-assessment and learning solutions. He also shares his expertise and leadership insights through educational advisory boards and steering committees on which he serves. On a not so busy day, you will find him mentoring students in an AI programme, coaching entrepreneurs, analysing whitepapers of blockchain technology projects, or playing an Irish folk song on his violin.

Sarah Corcoran

As Director of eAssessment Transformation, Sarah is responsible for ACCA’s overall digital assessment strategy. She is passionate about the ways in which technology can help transform both learning and assessment practices and have a real impact on students’ learning experience and future performance in the workplace. Sarah has written numerous papers and articles about trends in the application of technology in assessment and learning and has presented them at conferences across the world. In 2000, her team was awarded the highly prestigious European Academic Software Award for an innovative multilingual assessment and learning software package.
Prior to her current role, Sarah worked for Cambridge Assessment, Europe’s largest assessment provider, where she held several roles varying from Customer Services Director (responsible for supporting customers across the world) and Head of Transformation (responsible for the development and implementation of the organisation’s digital and change strategy). ACCA's strapline is 'Think Ahead' and, in keeping with this, Sarah is currently focused on building and implementing the ACCA Qualification of the Future.
Sarah holds an undergraduate degree in Education from Cambridge University (majoring in Educational Assessment) and a Masters in Business Administration from the London Business School.

Dee Arp

NEBOSH’s Chief Operating Officer, Dee Arp is a Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner of IOSH and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. Dee moved into occupational health and safety 20 years ago whilst working at The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). After becoming a qualified health and safety practitioner; she taught on a wide range of courses and worked with several boards to implement safety governance. Prior to joining NEBOSH; Dee held the roles of Course Developer and Head of Occupational Safety for RoSPA.  As NEBOSH’s Chief Operating Officer Dee has responsibility for providing leadership on all matters relating to qualification development and assessment of NEBOSH qualifications and compliance matters, including learning partner accreditation. Dee previously studied with Cambridge University for the Certificate of Continuing Education (Principles and Practice of Assessment) and is now undertaking further study with Cambridge University for a Master’s in Education.

Lucy Armitage

With over 16 years of experience working in Education Technology, Lucy joined Lexplore when it first entered the UK in 2018. Lucy’s role involves being part of a team that cares passionately about customers and users. The team strives to ensure they are always happy by delivering the highest quality of service and care. She is passionate about all children becoming confident readers and providing schools with an insightful assessment and the supporting materials to achieve this.

Melanie Atkins

Melanie Atkin has been involved in the assessment and testing industry for over 25 years, initially with Pearson Research & Assessments (PRA), then Vantage Learning. She has also worked as an independent consultant to various education and assessment organisations.
Mel is the CEO of New Data Solutions who are active in all levels of education and workforce assessments in Australia and overseas and provide services for complex assessment and data collection projects. Melanie was the project manager for the original 2008 BEMU/PMRT successful trial of automated essay scoring involving over 2000 essays from students in years 5, 7 and 9 across 3 Australian states and has since been passionate about leveraging artificial intelligence and technology into assessment and learning solutions to improve student outcomes.

Dr Ovidiu Bagdasar

Ovidiu Bagdasar is an Associate Professor in Mathematics at the University of Derby in the United Kingdom. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (FIMA) and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Ovidiu also holds membership of the American (AMM), European (EMS) and Romanian Mathematical Societies (SSMR), while being a member of the Marie Curie Alumni Network and of the e-Assessment Association. His research encompasses fundamental, applied and education aspects of Mathematics, and has been disseminated through numerous journal papers and presentations at national and international conferences. He co-authored the book Recurrent Sequences: Key Results, Applications and Problems in collaboration with D. Andrica, published by Springer, and Concise Computer Mathematics: Tutorials on Theory and Problems, published in SpringerBriefs Computer Science. Ovidiu actively collaborates with technology companies, academic colleagues and students to fulfil the dream of “a world where everyone enjoys maths”.

Dr Wimpie Beeken

Dr Beeken is a senior IT project manager with more than 20 years of experience with proven record of success leading all phases of diverse technology projects; APPMP, DBA, MBA, Electronic Eng. credentials; and business finance experience. He is a business strategist who plans and manages multimillion-Rands projects aligning business goals with technology solutions to drive process improvements, competitive advantage and bottom-line gains.

Jeremy Carter

Jeremy has 25 years of commercial experience in the technology industry. Through his work with Questionmark, BTL Group Ltd, as co-founder of Cirrus Assessment and with his consultancy, Advance EdTech, Jeremy has spent over 20 years in learning and assessment, collaborating with many awarding organisations in the UK,  and helping to deliver some of the largest e-assessment programmes in the country. As CEO of Sentira, he is now focused on transforming medical and healthcare learning and assessment using Virtual Reality and AI.

Aimee Cave

Aimee Cave is a current practising SENDCO in East Yorkshire with sustained experience of creating good provision in her school, including orchestrating the school becoming the first ADHD friendly school in Yorkshire. She also runs her own SEND Consultancy business, supporting other schools with improving their provision through, for example, SEND reviews, creating development plans and supporting good practice to ensure that every child gets what they need.

Patrick Coates

Patrick has worked in e-assessment since the late 90’s having worked on a number of e-assessment programmes with UK awarding bodies e-assessment which included working with QCA and other Government bodies on promoting the adoption of e-assessment.
It was working with Promissor (subsequently acquired by Pearson) and then Prometric that led to the choice of MBA dissertations – ‘Barriers to adoption of e-assessment by UK Awarding Bodies.’ Patrick was involved with the creation of BS7988:2007 – The code of practice for the use of IT in the delivery of assessments and subsequently was international editor for the standard to become adopted as ISO 23988:2007. It was this experience that led Patrick to join the team working with the four organisations which regulate qualifications in the UK – the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), DELLS (Wales), CCEA (Northern Ireland) and SQA and their collaboration to develop a publication, E-assessment: Guide to Effective Practice.
Patrick is now working as an independent consultant in the field of e-assessment supporting UK & US companies with their international strategy and business development activities and providing consultancy to Governments in the Middle East and South Africa. Skills: E-Learning, e-Assessment Strategy, Business Development, Account Management.

Dr Amanda Dainis

Amanda is the founder of Dainis and Company. She holds a PhD in Assessment and Measurement as well as a Masters in Public Administration, both from James Madison University. Amanda is a lead psychometric assessor for the ANAB ANSI / ISO 17024 standard, and the lead psychometrician for over 20 testing programmes. Prior to starting her own firm, she was a Senior Research Scientist for a leading talent assessment organisation. Dr. Dainis calls Virginia home, but travels the world helping organisations develop assessment programmes and navigate the accreditation process.

Professor Thomas Demeester

Thomas Demeester is assistant professor at Ghent University – IDLab, where he built up and currently co-leads the Text-to-Knowledge team. After obtaining his Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering (2005) and Ph.D. in Computational Electromagnetics (2009), he worked as a post-doc in the field of Information Retrieval, gradually moving towards research in Natural Language Processing (NLP) with a strong machine learning component. He was a visiting researcher at the Machine Reading lab, University College London in 2016.  His current research is in various NLP areas, as well as topics in neuro-symbolic AI.  His main application areas are the media sector, healthcare, and the educational domain.

Steve Dew

Steve has been a Head Teacher since 2013 and prior to that has worked in nursery, primary and secondary schools in many roles. In 2016 he became disillusioned with the assessment of writing in particular in primary schools and sought to find an alternative solution to the issues e.g. unreliability, open to interpretation, time consuming and pressured for schools and teachers, while at the same time reducing teacher workload. After discovering a small company using Adaptive Comparative Judgement he worked with them to use the tech to develop a strategy to moderate writing.  That initial work turned into AssessProgress.com. RM bought out the software and have built a high performance, reliable and valid assessment tool. AssessProgress services the software for primary schools with two current products: National Moderation of Primary Writing and National Assessment of Year 6 Writing.

Jon Dupre

Jon has over 14 years of experience in managing exams and assessments for an educational institution, as well as an MBA in Business Administration, an MEd in Measurement, evaluation, statistics and assessment, and a BS in Biopharmaceutical Sciences.

Paul Duvall

Paul is the Manager of Customer Success and also a hands-on Learning Consultant at PebblePad where he has worked for nearly 4 years.  Prior to that Paul was a Director of TEL and Lecturer in medical education at the University of Liverpool School of Medicine for 10 years.  He brings with him a deep knowledge of medical education practices in the UK.

Alistair Fryer-Bovill

Alistair is an accomplished sales and marketing strategist, with extensive experience in the learning and assessment technologies sector dating back over 30 years. As Vice President of Global Marketing at PSI, Alistair has responsibility for coordinating efforts across all markets to drive awareness of PSI’s credentialing offering, articulate its vision and values, build brand equity and maximise sales opportunities. Alistair joined PSI when it acquired EnlightKS in 2016.  Prior to his role as Marketing Director at EnlightKS, he was MD and co-owner of learning technology specialist BdM Development, where he built a successful business over 17 years, implementing learning management systems and eLearning programmes in over 20 countries, for customers ranging from SMEs to FTSE 100 companies.

Dr Rebecca Gill

Dr Rebecca Gill is a Learning Enhancement and Technology Adviser at Newcastle University. Since 2014 Rebecca has been co-lead for the University’s Digital Assessment Service, and supports academic and professional services colleagues with use of learning technologies for assessment and feedback.
In previous roles Rebecca has taught and assessed English Literature modules at Newcastle and Sunderland Universities, and postgraduate research skills at Newcastle, experiences that she draws on in advising colleagues on assessment design and practice.

Professor Anita Goel

Professor Anita Goel is an academician, administrator, researcher and author with more than 34 years of experience in the domain of Computer Science. She is a Professor of Computer Science in Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi, India, and has also held the post of Principal of the college. She was a Fellow in Computer Science and Academic Secretary at Institute of Life Long Learning, University of Delhi, India, and was responsible for e-content creation in Computer Science.
For last 34 years in the industry, she has taught undergraduate, post-graduate and PhD students in several universities in India and has written 21 books that have been internationally published, including and Amazon bestseller. She is a Ph.D. supervisor to 9 students (6 awarded, 3 pursuing) and has published more than 75 papers in international journals and conferences. Her primary focus areas are Cloud Computing, Microservices, Serverless Computing, Software Engineering, Web Applications, Technology Enhanced Education (MOOC Platforms). Professor Goel is a reviewer for international journals, a member of editorial boards and has delivered invited talks and judged paper presentations in international conferences. She has travelled internationally to present papers in conferences in Europe and Asia.

Tracey Gralton

Tracey developed an early interest in assessment, particularly K-12 literacy, early in her teaching career. She transitioned to the assessment field in 1998 and has been involved in population testing of literacy from the inception of Australia’s National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in 2006. She has worked through the challenges of large-scale, paper-based testing and marking through to online marking as well as the transition to a fully online test delivery mode.
Tracey is a Literacy Principal Consultant at the School Curriculum and Standards Authority, which is responsible for the large-scale Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (OLNA) programme in Western Australia. The literacy component of the OLNA has provided opportunities to explore automated essay marking (AEM) and consider ways in which it could potentially enhance the assessment of writing.
Tracey undertook research in 2008 into AEM for the purposes of large-scale assessment as part of her Master’s Degree in Education Measurement and has continued to explore its possibilities and challenges in numerous research projects and studies.

Glen Hall

Glenn has managed and overseen the production of Functional Skills mathematics assessments at NCFE for two and half years. Before this, he taught in a large FE college in the north of England teaching hairdressing, barbering, maths and English.

Dr Sandy Heldsinger

Dr Sandy Heldsinger is leading the implementation of the Brightpath assessment and reporting software in schools.
Sandy co-ordinated the WA system-level assessments, has taught masters level course in educational assessment for a number of years and has led the development of a wide range of resources, including reporting software, to support schools in using assessment to improve student performance.
Sandy developed central components of the Western Australian Curriculum Outline for WA’s School Curriculum and Standards Authority and she co-authored What teachers need to know about assessment and reporting which was published by the Australian Council for Educational Research.

Gareth Hopkins

Gareth has over 17 years’ worth of experience in the e-assessment field, focusing primarily on the creation of screen-based assessments. That work has included the transition of paper-based assessments to screen, design of screen-first assessments, and the migration of item banks and tests between systems.

Tim Jones

Tim has supported Fry-IT's international customer base with implementation and onboarding for over a decade. Drawing on this experience, Tim is integral in developing Fry-IT's customer relationships into meaningful and collaborative partnerships.

Mathew KG

K G Mathew is an educator with over 25 years of experience in the field of education and educational leadership. As its founding Principal, he has been instrumental in pioneering the innovative and contemporary pedagogical practices at Excel Public School, making it a unique place for learning and teaching.

Ajay Kulkarni

Ajay spearheads all the business development efforts of Excelsoft. With 20+ years of experience, Ajay brings with him in-depth knowledge of the education technology requirements and solutions for the same. Ajay’s exposure to global markets and a good understanding of the cultural aspects of different regions helps establish a great relationship with partner organisations. Ajay is an Engineering graduate and has a post-graduation in Management.

Richard London

Richard has over 15 years’ experience designing in the assessment industry experience, working with multi discipline onshore and offshore development teams, providing User Experience and User Interface thought leadership. He is currently work as the Senior User Experience at Prometric overseeing their UX output across all their software. This involves speaking with end users to understand their needs and providing guidance on accessibility for the software. These activities directly or indirectly ensure that they provide the best candidate experience.

Connor McElwaine

Connor McElwaine is Vice Principal at Ark Pioneer, a start-up school located in the north London burgh of Barnet opened in 2019. Connor was a Teach first participant who has worked across the Ark network at a range of schools in Birmingham and London. From the beginning at Pioneer, Connor has sought to embed an efficient curriculum and assessment approach that allow for a sustained academic challenge.

Alistair McNaught, Director, McNaught Consultancy

Alistair McNaught spent 20 years as a mainstream teacher committed to developing student skills and independent learning. In his teaching days, Alistair contributed to staff training sessions for the EdExcel awarding body. His early adoption of e-learning paved the way for an abiding interest in making teaching and learning content more accessible to more students. Alistair had a national role promoting elearning for Becta from 2000 – 2004, followed by 14 years for Jisc TechDis and Jisc working widely across the further and higher education sectors. This included being part of OfQual’s Access Consultation Forum for several years and contributing to guidance for awarding bodies on creating accessible PDFs for print impaired students. He now works as an independent consultant. He is a regular conference speaker, trainer, author and mentor who specialises in making accessibility accessible to non-specialists.

Dr Nicola Mellor

Dr Nicola Mellor is the Qualifications Director and Responsible Officer at the Chartered Insurance Institute, overseeing the development and review of qualifications in insurance and personal finance professions and leading the quality management of the awarding organisation. She holds a PhD in Classics from the University of Reading and a Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Assessment and Examinations from the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Assessment.  She has 14 years’ experience within awarding organisations and 18 in education, spanning higher education, general qualifications and vocational, technical and professional qualifications. Her particular interests include assessment validity within a professional body context, accessibility in qualifications and engaging with learner experience of assessment.

Rajeev Menon

Rajeev is an experienced business leader and a customer focused product innovation specialist with over 20 years of wide exposure in sales across Enterprise & HR, Education, Industrial and FMCG segments. He has strong expertise in talent evaluations and has acquired and exhibited expertise in product creation and operations. He is a thought leader in talent assessment, having delivered talks in this area and contributed articles to newspapers and trade journals. He is also adept at identifying new business opportunities, forging strategic tie-ups and creating and managing international partnerships. Rajeev has had successful and long sales stints with Wipro Infrastructure, Coats Plc and MeritTrac Services.

Adarsh MS

Adarsh focuses on the North American market for Excelsoft. He is an experienced technologist with a demonstrated history of working in the e-learning industry. Adarsh is skilled in team building, leadership, product management, and e-learning consulting. He brings strong business development expertise and combines with strategies for growth. Adarsh has a Master's Degree in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Professor Barry O’Sullivan

Professor Barry O’Sullivan is the Head of Assessment Research & Development at the British Council where he was responsible for the design and development of the Aptis test service. He has undertaken research across many areas on language testing and assessment and its history and has worked on the development and refinement of the socio-cognitive model of test development and validation since 2000. He is particularly interested in the communication of test validation and in test localisation. He has presented his work at many conferences around the world, while almost 100 of his publications have appeared in a range of international journals, books and technical reports. He has worked on many test development and validation projects over the past 25 years and advises ministries and institutions on assessment policy and practice.
He is the founding president of the UK Association of Language Testing and Assessment (UKALTA) and holds honorary and visiting chairs at a number of universities globally. In 2016 he was awarded fellowship of the Academy of Social Science in the UK and was elected to Fellowship of the Asian Association for Language Assessment in 2017. In 2019 he was awarded an OBE for his contribution to international language testing.

Dr Tony Payton

Tony is a researcher and lecturer in healthcare science at The University of Manchester (UoM) with over 30 years’ experience. He is an author on over 120 peer-reviewed publications including in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics, with his work being cited in over 9500 journal papers. Tony is also Director of the Manchester Cognitive Genetics Ageing Cohort, one of the world’s longest running study of cognition in the elderly, and a member of the VR@manchester steering group, where he represents the interests of the medical school, which funds and coordinates AR/VR projects across UoM. Tony led the evaluation of VR in the UoM medical school, after recognising the potential for VR in higher education teaching.

Manuel Salgado

Manuel brings over 26 years of experience to his role, including practical knowledge in working with online training, instructional design, gamification, design thinking, and change management. As a result of this background, his approach is very dynamic and he brings a high level of expertise and fun to the work.
Currently, as the Head of Training at OutSystems, Manuel is responsible for overseeing Outsystem’s professional services training business that includes their certification programme, official boot camps, and managing an ecosystem of training and education partners spreading across the globe. He is particularly involved with training at scale and enablement strategies, as his primary goal is to deliver excellent training services worldwide to a growing community of customers, partners, and users.

Detken Scheepers

Detken Scheepers is the Head: e-Learning at the Department of Education Innovation, University of Pretoria, where she is responsible for the management of a group of passionate e-education professionals. Her ambit includes the use of e-assessment across the university, from the selection of systems to the functional support of lecturers in their use of e-assessment.

Dean Seabrook

A former teacher, Dean has worked on high-profile reform projects in construction and the built environment and digital technology in his four years at Qualifications Wales. In each project, Dean has supported the introduction of innovative assessments that have deeply embedded digital technologies within national qualifications. As part of the Policy and Reform team, Dean is now exploring the impact of digital technologies on assessment and the ways in which the qualification system can harness them to create a flexible and up-to-date assessment system that fully engages learners and allows them to best demonstrate their abilities.

David Sime

David is a multi-award winning Augmented and Virtual Reality production manager with over twenty-two years of digital media experience. A qualified lecturer and teacher, David has delivered and created content at primary, secondary, further and higher education levels, as well as for vocational training at MA and Professional Level. A published author on the practical and industrial applications of VR, AR and and IoT, David lectures all over the world on behalf of Google, the CIM and the Modern Apprenticeship Scheme on emerging social and technological trends and their benefits to education, industry, medicine and heritage.

Vegard Sivertsen

With degrees in computer science and psychology, Cirrus’ CEO Vegard Sivertsen has been at the leading edge of education technology since 1999, when he and four others started the company itslearning, which became the leading LMS on the European market. In 2013, with a vision to transform the e-assessment landscape, Vegard founded Cirrus Assessment, the only e-assessment platform that combines the easy-to-use features of a simple app with the rich functionality of a fully featured, high end platform.

Andre St-Pierre

Andre St-Pierre is the Associate Director of Assessment Operations overseeing the Examinations and Credentials Units. He joined the Royal College in 2012 after spending over 35 years in operations, change management, process improvement and project management roles. Andre and his team are accountable for the delivery of the Royal College Certification Examinations for 68 medical specialties.  With his leadership team the Royal College was able to successfully adapt their paper-based examination delivery processes and in-person applied exam delivery model to a fully functional web-based platform in a short 8 month window due to COVID’s impact.

Nicole Tucker

Nicole Tucker is the Director of Statistical Reporting and Analytics at PSI Services LLC, leading a team of statistical analysts, psychometricians, and research scientists specialising in psychometric reporting and analytics to support the development of valid and reliable high-stakes assessments. In addition to psychometric reporting, Nicole manages the development and application of data forensic techniques used to detect trends consistent with fraudulent test-taking behaviour, like proxy testing and item harvesting. Nicole holds a Master of Science in Statistics, Measurement, and Assessment, and Research Technology (SMART) from the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education. She also earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and has over 14 years of experience in test development and quantitative assessments.

Chitra M Uthaya

Chitra is the Head of Assessments and Learning Events at Excelsoft Technologies in Mysore, India. She is a teacher and teacher educator with over 30 years experience in the K-12 segment. She leads a team of subject matter experts who design projects. As an educator she believes that learning cannot occur in silos and that students must engage deeply with issues that affect the world. It is this belief that led her to experiment with ways to engage students during the lockdown and make sense of the pandemic that suddenly disrupted our lives.

Marc Van Hasselt

Marc has more than 20 years of experience managing global computer-based test centre operations. He is responsible for directing Prometric’s investment in technological and operational enhancements and innovations for fair and equal opportunities for test taking, ensuring that all corporate capabilities comply with regulations and accessibility standards. Prior to his current role, he led executive leadership for all of Prometric’s North American test centre operations, including implementing new client examinations, enforcing client practices and policies, ensuring superior customer, and overseeing test centre staff management.

Filip Vanlerberghe

Filip Vanlerberghe is Product Manager at Televic Education, where he is responsible for the product strategy, roadmap and innovation of assessmentQ, an advanced e-assessment platform. Filip applies about 20 years of experience in software development, usability, e-learning, marketing and strategy. Previously, he was Director of Corporate Product Development in an international company. As an entrepreneur, he also owns and participates in several smaller businesses.

Rune Vindenes

Rune Vindenes has been with Lexplore since October 2022 and is currently working as sales director. Rune has several years of experience from working as a teacher in the Norwegian primary school system and has also held various positions at three different edtech companies.