Museum Educator
Nicola’s interests are around arts and cultural education in the early years and its links to democratic engagement and social justice. She uses practitioner-led and participatory research methods to learn more about young children’s experiences in museums.
She worked on the University of Cambridge Museums’ Nursery in Residence (2017) project in collaboration with Cambridge University Botanic Garden, which investigated young children’s meaning making through sustained engagement with a museum and garden. Thanks to an ESRC Impact Acceleration Award, the findings from this project were shared through a seminar series (Lines of Enquiry) which brought together academics, practitioners and stakeholders with an interest in early childhood and cultural learning. A follow up Playgroup in Residence: It’s Our Museum Too practitioner-led research project was carried out in 2019-2020 with support from the Cambridge Humanities Research Grant Scheme. A third early years residency, using picture books to support families' explorations of museums, is currently underway.
Following undergraduate studies in Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University, Nicola trained as a primary school teacher, and then read for a post-graduate diploma in Museum Studies. She has specialised in Early Years Education since 2005, and has an MA in Early Childhood Studies. She began working in Museum Education in 2007, and is currently studying for a PhD with the Centre for Research in Early Childhood focusing on very young children's engagement with museum objects and spaces.
Nicola was a lead teacher on the BRIC project (2014-2017), which was supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and investigated Young Children, Democracy and Public Spaces with practitioners from England, Sweden and Italy, which inspired her to think about the role of shared spaces in the cultural lives of young children.
Email: nlw30@cam.ac.uk
