Gabriel Cavalli

Professor Gabriel Cavalli is Director of the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE) and Professor of Science and Engineering Language at the University of Leeds.

Originally trained as a polymer chemist (BSc, MRes, Universidad de la República, Uruguay; PhD, Imperial College London), Gabriel’s career spans over three decades of teaching, research and educational leadership across Uruguay, the UK and China. His work is driven by a long-standing interest in the relationship between research, learning, language and disciplinary identity, and in how expertise itself can act as both an enabler and a barrier for students.

Gabriel‘s pedagogical research focuses on language and subject-focused ways of thinking and being, drawing on sociolinguistics and social theory to understand how students gain access to disciplinary communities. This work reframes inclusion not simply as participation, but as access to expertise, and seeks to inform the design of pedagogies that demonstrably improve student outcomes.

Before joining Leeds, Gabriel was founding Director of two flagship pedagogical centres at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL): the International Centre for Teaching and Learning (ICTL) at Queen Mary Engineering School in Xi’an, China, and the QMUL Centre for Academic Inclusion in Science and Engineering (CAISE). These centres helped catalyse a step-change in establishing pedagogical research, inclusive curriculum design and educational development as integral to the educational landscape in QMUL.

Gabriel has held a range of senior academic and executive leadership roles from Director of Teaching Development and Scholarship in the QMUL School of Engineering and Materials Sciences to Executive Vice-Dean (equivalent to UK Co Head of School) in the Queen Mary Engineering School in Xi’an, a large UK–China joint educational institute. At QMUL Gabriel led the Inclusive Pedagogies Working Group as part of the Inclusive Curriculum Steering Group. These roles have involved responsibility for academic governance, strategic planning, staff leadership and role and institutional design.

Gabriel is also a sector-level community builder. He co-launched the Dales Dialogues in Higher Education, a national forum that brings together scholars, educational leaders and practitioners to rethink the role of pedagogical research in UK universities. Emerging from this work, he is now Co-Chair of the UK SoTL Alliance, a growing national network representing around 45 UK higher education institutions. The Alliance works to strengthen the visibility, quality and impact of SoTL, and to position pedagogical research as a core component of institutional strategy and educational change.

As Director of LITE, Gabriel leads the Institute as the University’s research and development engine for educational enhancement, with equal emphasis on rigorous inquiry and the translation of evidence into effective practice. His role centres on:

• embedding SoTL and pedagogical research within institutional strategy,
• supporting colleagues and students to work at the intersection of research and teaching,
• building robust evaluation of educational innovation,
• and ensuring that educational change at Leeds is evidence-based, inclusive and impactful in the classroom.

Across his work, Gabriel is particularly committed to collaborative, interdisciplinary and dialogic approaches to educational enhancement, and to positioning students as partners in pedagogical research.

At heart, Gabriel is motivated by learning as a shared, social endeavour. He is deeply interested in how people come to see themselves as legitimate participants in academic and professional communities, and in how teaching can open, or unintentionally close, those doors. He enjoys working in conversation with others and tends to think best out loud, often through dialogue rather than presentation. Having lived and worked across different higher-education systems, he does not assume that one model, culture or way of working is the default, and is attentive to context and difference. Colleagues often describe him as engaged, direct and enthusiastic, and he pays close attention to how decisions affect people as well as ideas. He values openness, humour, and not taking himself or institutions too seriously, in the belief that universities work best when people feel able to contribute as themselves.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-cavalli-07a7123/