Dr Rachael Ironside

Community Involvement

Since 2016, Rachael has led both live modules for the Event Management course, Live Festival Management and The Main Event. She’s implemented changes to these to enhance the student experience, foster greater graduate skill development and engage with the wider regional community.

Notably, the Live Festival Management module has contributed to the cultural scene of Aberdeen through the creation of the Aberdeen Student Festival, and is often seen as an example of best practice. In just two years, it has attracted over 900 attendees, hosted 13 multi-cultural events and raised thousands for charity. Similarly, The Main Event, which is a final year project has seen students host 45 events and raise over £120,000 for local causes. This module has seen a range of innovative events over the years including the first Drive-In Cinema at Pittodrie.

The events from both modules have gained recognition locally and nationally: RGU is currently the only university to have won at the Scottish Event Awards three times.

RGU Go: India

In 2016, Rachael jointly delivered RGU Go: India with the project lead, Bryan McCann from the School of Health Sciences. This involved gaining funding from the Scottish Government Outward Mobility Fund to take interdisciplinary groups of 12 students to Manipal, India.

The project saw RGU students work with students from Manipal to organise a health and sports event at a local school. The students then travelled to Mumbai to see how sports and health initiatives were benefitting local communities. The students expressed significant benefits from the project in terms of confidence, internationalisation and employability.

There’s more…

Rachael completed a PhD in Social Interaction and Paranormal Experience in July 2016 alongside her significant teaching commitments. She has published three papers from this research in high ranking journals. She’s currently leading a project with Craig Leith and Helen Dargie, School of Creative and Cultural Business to examine the interpretation of Aberdeen’s dark heritage through trails.

In August, she hosted the first Supernatural in Contemporary Society Conference at RGU to provide a platform for research in the areas associated with the school and to foster interdisciplinary working.

She led the development of a new module for third year aimed at preparing students for their fourth year research project. The module, Critical Approaches to Cultural Studies is designed to inspire students through research and encourage them to engage with and critique academic studies whilst applying this to their own area of industry.