Profile
Karen Hudson is an Innovation and Learning Manager within the Queen Mary Academy, providing strategic support for excellence and innovation in teaching and learning. Working in alignment with Queen Mary’s Strategy 2030, a key objective of her role is to build capacity in innovative pedagogy and practice, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education.
Karen brings extensive experience from a diverse range of teaching and professional services roles spanning Further and Higher Education and Adult Community Learning. Before joining Queen Mary, she was a Lecturer in Learning Development at the University of Essex, where she collaborated with academic and professional services colleagues to integrate academic, research, and healthcare numeracy skills across the portfolio of pre-registration nursing programmes.
A passionate advocate for inclusive, digitally enhanced pedagogy, Karen is dedicated to empowering educators to deliver a transformative, world-class education. She holds a Professional Graduate Certificate in Education, an MA in Education with e-learning, and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. An ALDinHE Certified Practitioner in Learning Development, she is also a member of the ALDinHE LearnHigher Working Group, managing and developing the online repository of peer-reviewed teaching and learning resources.
Teaching
Karen began her teaching career at South Essex College of Further and Higher Education, where she supported vocational learners with a diverse range of needs to achieve their academic goals. She later designed and delivered an Entry Level 1 Functional Skills ICT programme for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities for Essex County Council’s Adult Community Learning Service.
In 2013, she moved to the University of Essex, where she developed an integrated approach to academic and healthcare numeracy skills within the Nursing Division. Working closely with academic and professional services colleagues, she implemented a consistent and coherent approach to learning development across all pre-registration nursing programmes in alignment with academic, professional, and regulatory frameworks.
Karen joined the Queen Mary Academy in January 2025, where she will be working on a range of projects and initiatives aimed at supporting innovative educational practices.
Publications
Hudson, K. (2019) “Academic Success: a student’s guide to studying at university”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (14). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i14.499.
Hudson, K., Cowan, N. and Mohammed, R. (2023) Inclusive Teaching: A Quick Guide for Module Leads and Lecturers Available at: https://aldinhe.ac.uk/product/learnhigher-resources/inclusive-teaching-a-quick-guide-for-module-leads-and-lecturers/ (Accessed: 13 January 2025)
Hudson, K. (2024) “Integrated assignment workshops developing assessment literacy via collaborative exemplar analysis”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (32). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi32.1400.
Langford, A.-M. and Hudson, K., (2023) “Together in electric dreams: Inventing an online asynchronous Community of Practice for Learning Developers working with health students”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (29). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi29.1089.