Dr Louise Kelly

Senior Teaching Fellow

Mathematics and Statistics

Contact

Personal statement

I graduated from the University of Strathclyde in 1992 with BSc (Hons) degree in Mathematical Sciences. I then went on to do a PhD at Strathclyde, in Mathematics and Statistics. I was awarded my PhD in 1996 and my thesis was entitled: Listeria monocytogenes in Silage: A mathematical modelling approach. Following my PhD, I started my career as a Risk Assessor with the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA). The VLA was an Executive Agency of the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the United Kingdom Government. It is now named the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). I was  employed with APHA on a part-time basis until 2023. During my time at VLA/APHA I  developed and managed many veterinary and public health risk assessment and mathematical modelling projects relating to, for example, bovine tuberculosis, bovine brucellosis, foot and mouth diseease, bluetongue, camplyobacter, salmonella, rabies, avian influenza and COVID-19. I worked as an expert for the World Health Organisation, The food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the European Food Safety Authority  and European Animal Health Office. I  also ran numerous risk assessment courses in, for example, the United States, China, Thailand and Europe.

 

In 2002, I returned to the University of Strathclyde as a Lecturer in Statistics whilst maintaining my research links with VLA/APHA through a joint appointment. Since 2020 my main area of research has been focused on higher education outcomes and their association with deprivation and other equality characteristics. I am particularly interested in the effects of Widening Access measures.

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Professional Activities

Lumpy Skin Disease: changes in risk since 2017
Speaker
3/6/2024
Mathematics & Statistics Teaching Away Day
Participant
22/5/2024
The Medical Statistician Degree Apprenticeship
Speaker
5/2023
SQA Higher Applications of Mathematics Reviewer
Advisor
26/11/2022
Royal Veterinary College University of London
Visiting lecturer
11/2022
Overseas Development Agency Online Risk Assessment Course
Member of programme committee
5/2022

More professional activities

Projects

Exploring education outcomes and their association with deprivation and other equality characteristics
Kelly, Louise (Principal Investigator) Csoban, Tunde (Co-investigator) Stewart, Ryan (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025
A Scottish study on entry requirements and attainment for students from deprived backgrounds
Burns, Nathan (Principal Investigator) Kelly, Louise (Academic) Stewart, Ryan (Academic) Willison, Debra (Academic)
The Commission on Widening Access’ (CoWA) published its recommendations and targets for educational reform in Scotland in 2016 (Commission on Widening Access 2015, 2016). The key target was that by 2030, 20% of entrants to higher education across Scotland should come from the most deprived background. This refers to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) areas that rank in the lowest 20% in terms of deprivation (Quintile 1). When these targets were introduced by the CoWA, they also recommended the introduction of contextual offers. Such offers consider a student’s contextual background alongside their prior attainment when making admissions decisions. Applicants that are eligible for contextual offers are assessed against Minimum Entry Requirements (MERs), which are typically lower than the Standard Entry Requirements (SERs) by one or two grades. By 2019, MERs were to be implemented across all degree programmes in Scotland and publicly viewable by potential applicants (Universities Scotland 2017). The CoWA argued that a student’s “potential” was not solely reflected in their academic attainment from high school, rather this was just one contributing factor alongside their contextual background. In these arguments they cited empirical evidence from the Universities of St. Andrew’s (Lasselle, McDougall-Bagnall, and Smith 2014) and Bristol (Hoare and Johnston 2011) which suggested that students from more disadvantaged backgrounds can perform as well as, or better than, their non-disadvantaged peers at university.

To date, the main Widening Access efforts in Scotland have been focused on increasing the proportion of SIMD 0-20 Quintile entrants to university, in line with the CoWA targets; less emphasis has been placed on how these students perform whilst at university. Strathclyde implemented contextual offers and MERs in 2015/2016 and since then, have met WA targets ahead of schedule. Meeting targets has, however been challenging for Science-based subjects, including Chemistry. Previous projects have been undertaken to understand why this challenge exists and how to address the imbalance between Science and Humanities/Business programmes. In this project, we plan to extend this work by looking more closely at entry requirements and their influence on performance. Using a linked dataset of anonymous student records, we will undertake a statistical analysis to determine if there is any difference in performance between students that receive a contextual offer (CO) and those that receive a standard offer (SO). If differences are found to exist, we will explore the effects of SIMD Quintile and prior attainment to determine which of these factors, if any, has most influence. The results of the analysis will be used to inform how we set our MERs and SERs and, if appropriate, offer support. We anticipate that taking informed action will improve access, retention and attainment of students from the most deprived backgrounds within Scotland.
01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025
A Scottish study on entry requirements and attainment for students from deprived backgrounds
Willison, Debra (Principal Investigator) Kelly, Louise (Co-investigator) Stewart, Ryan (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025
TBMI Development and Maintenance
Kelly, Louise (Principal Investigator)
Fundig for 0.4 FTE of staff member who recently moved from Edinburgh University
20-Jan-2021 - 02-Jan-2022
Thermal death model for hepatitis E virus (HEV)
Barry, Sarah (Principal Investigator) Kelly, Louise (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2021
Experimental design for the study of anthelmintic resistance in UK cattle populations
Kelly, Louise (Principal Investigator)
30-Jan-2014 - 31-Jan-2018

More projects

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Contact

Dr Louise Kelly
Senior Teaching Fellow
Mathematics and Statistics

Email: louise.kelly@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 3659