Lecturer's passion for science shines through

Friday, 26 February 2010

Jennie Litten-Brown and her dog Orla

As a former schoolteacher herself, Jennie understands how important hands-on science is for encouraging children to consider it as a subject choice beyond GCSE.

Jennie is a lecturer in animal science and her passion for her subject has led to two awards - the Early Career Teaching Fellowship and her faculty award for outstanding contributions to teaching and learning.

The former recognises individual excellence and in the latter students nominate candidates, which, Jennie says, makes it extra special.

"I always try and give something back which is why the award means so much to me - it showed the students appreciate what I do," she said. "I love teaching and the interaction with them - in fact I genuinely miss them in the summer vacation!"

The outreach work with local schools gives pupils the opportunity to do something not normally available to them - such as dissecting stillborn lambs and piglets. Jennie also takes her dog Orla along so students can study her behaviour and how it feeds into animal science.

"She was a recue dog and has had a lot of problems and I talk about how we have overcome them," said Jennie. "She, of course, loves the attention."

Visits to the University's dairy farm allow children to see how food goes from farm to fork and ends with a session making butter. "The pupils love getting out of the classroom - they feel special. Generally the outreach work enables me to show pupils that an animal degree is something worthwhile and fascinating and an option to be considered."

For Jennie, her interest in science was sparked by her grandfather from the age of five. His love of it fuelled Jennie's desire to pursue first a biology degree, then an MSc in sustainable agriculture and finally a PhD on the role of leptin (a hormone involved in fat metabolism) throughout the lifecycle of the pig.

Her research looked at piglet mortality and how to reduce it. The hope is that the findings will feed into research on human cot death - a subject very close to Jennie's heart as her sister died as a baby. Now her research is still around pig nutrition but she is involved in the use of prebiotics and probiotics in gut health.

In the future, Jennie will add to her interests when she becomes a School Director of Teaching and Learning for Agriculture, Policy and Development this year. This involves looking at the quality of teaching and learning and providing leadership in making improvements.

"Working at Reading is my dream job," she said. "I'm really looking forward to the new post as it is a way to air my ideas and gives me the chance to meet like-minded people."