Dr Pınar Kolancali is an analyst within the Early Childhood Education and Care team at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Education.
Pınar has held various research and policy advisory roles, including positions at the Department of Education. Before joining the OECD, she was instrumental in the Learning for Families through Technology Project (LiFT) within the Department of Education and organised an international symposium on technology use in early childhood at the University of Oxford. She has led a team of researchers for two UNICEF reports focusing on the Early Childhood Education and Care sector and the educational effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on school outcomes in Türkiye. During her doctoral studies at the Department, she coordinated and contributed to a large-scale survey investigating parenting experiences of immigrant families in the UK for a European Commission-funded project, Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society (ISOTIS). Pınar has experience collaborating with ministers, education leaders, and corporate and non-profit organisations to conduct impact-oriented education research.
Pınar holds a DPhil and MSc in Education from the University of Oxford. Prior to her studies at Oxford, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Istanbul, Türkiye.
Oliver is interested in the transition of East Asian graduates into the workforce and their subsequent career trajectories.
His doctoral research is multidisciplinary, drawing on the political economy of skill formation, higher education policy, and English medium instruction. His academic background is in political behaviour and applied linguistics. He was awarded a Centenary Scholarship from St Anne’s College and is a Doctoral Teaching Fellow in the department.
Supervisors
Heath Rose and Gene Thompson
Kris is the Communications Officer at the Department of Education, working closely with the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) and Rees Centre. She has a digital first background in journalism, public relations and new media, having worked 10 years with educational institutions and publishers in Malaysia, Australia and the UK. She looks after the websites for CGHE and Rees Centre and supports both internal and external communications.
Pippa is a first-year DPhil student, whose research interests focus on vulnerable students’ outcomes and experiences of secondary school English education.
In 2023, Pippa completed an MSc in Learning and Teaching at the University of Oxford, researching pedagogical strategies for the teaching of emotionally challenging literature to students with experiences of trauma. Her DPhil research will build on this project, exploring looked after children’s engagement with English education, and their outcomes in the subject.
Alongside her research, Pippa continues to teach English in a secondary school; she is therefore passionate about collaborations between practice and research. Her project seeks to develop our understanding of looked after children’s experiences in English classrooms, in order to facilitate the development of strategies to support these vulnerable learners.
Supervisors
Nicole Dingwall and Julie Selwyn
Amy is a DPhil student, funded by an ESRC Grand Union DTP Studentship.
Her doctoral research focuses on the educational provision for separated asylum-seeking and refugee children within the UK context. Alongside her DPhil, she also works for a London local authority’s Virtual School for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, as an ‘Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children Advisory Teacher/Caseworker’.
Prior to starting the DPhil, she completed an (ESRC funded) MSc in Sociology at Oxford University, a MPhil in Development Studies at Cambridge University, and a BA in International Development and Portuguese at Leeds University. She also spent a year studying Social Work at Rio de Janeiro’s PUC University.
Supervisors
David Mills and Ellie Ott
Ling is a third-year PhD student in the School of Chinese as a Second Language at Peking University in China and also a recognised student in the Department of Education at Oxford. My research focuses on teacher education and development, with a specific emphasis on teachers who teach Chinese language worldwide.
Supervisors
Laura Molway and Robert Woore