Meet Your Academic Reps
Our academic representatives are nominated by our course leaders and represent them on both the Executive and Journalism & Accreditation Boards. If you teach on a BJTC accredited course and wish to raise a point at either board, please contact one of your academic representatives below.
Chris Chohan
Journalism & Accreditation Board
Chris Chohan is the MA Broadcast Journalism course leader at the University of Sheffield, bringing his own style and experiences as a University Teacher in broadcast and digital storytelling.
He spent 11 years at the University of Lincoln, working across the undergraduate and postgraduate level groups, sharing his industry skills at the forefront of the teaching and learning, leading on modules and open days to develop the next generation of journalists with the team.
Chris is one of the graduates of the ITV News Trainee Scheme, working at ITV News Central before moving onto GMTV, the launch of Daybreak, and what is now the UK’s most talked about breakfast show – Good Morning Britain.
No day is ever the same and his experiences as a news and sport producer, working on programme items, to World Cups, Olympic Games and Oscars coverage, as well as those all-important people stories and features gave him excellent grounding and experience to move into academia and teaching.
Equality, diversity, and inclusivity is at the forefront of Chris’ work, culture and ethos and has been involved in mentoring students and industry colleagues for a number of years to help shape careers and thinking in the sector.
Will Cope
Journalism & Accreditation Board
Will Cope is the course leader of the BA (Hons) Sports Journalism degree at Solent University – a role he has had since 2015 – and has taught on the course since it began in 2007. His specialism lies in sports broadcast journalism, particularly in radio and TV. Will has been a journalist, commentator, and presenter for more than 20 years, working for a variety of UK broadcasters including Sky Sports, talkSPORT, Channel 5, Quest and Chelsea TV. He is still a regular contributor to sports radio and television both at home and abroad and works on several programmes produced by IMG. Will also works as an event presenter, voice over artist and corporate media trainer.
Will has lived and worked in the United States and Australia as well as the U.K and has been lucky enough to study and teach at Universities in both America and Spain. He is also a Fellow of Advance HE (formerly Higher Education Authority).
Away from Solent University, Will is also working on a project with the English Football League (EFL) and broadcast partners to widen participation for sports journalists from all backgrounds.
Will is a huge sports fan and loves to play and watch sport whenever he gets the opportunity.
Dr. Anne Harbin
Journalism & Accreditation Board
Anne currently leads the MA Journalism programmes at the University of West of England teaching radio, news writing and reporting skills and overseeing professional placements. She also teaches across undergraduate programmes. She has a strong commitment to the industry-standard frameworks of the BJTC. She is also a regular member of panels visiting other universities, so has direct experience of being on both sides of the table on accreditation visits!
Anne has worked in radio and online journalism for over 15 years and was instrumental in producing programmes during events such as 9/11 attacks and the US retaliation. She started her career in BBC Local Radio at Radio Merseyside and went on to become a news trainee at before becoming a producer at BBC London and freelancing for R4 and World Service.
She then worked on supporting the Community Radio Pilots in Manchester helping to oversee the training of many volunteers, working on the Community Radio Toolkit training which led to her becoming a lecturer in FE then HE.
Currently working on podcasts to help reduce the Awarding Gaps in HE. Anne is passionate about getting people into industry and supporting underrepresented communities to have a voice.
Shirley Lewis
Executive Board
Shirley Lewis is a senior lecturer in broadcast journalism at Liverpool John Moores University, bringing a range of experience to the classroom from newspapers, BBC Radio, regional television and as a Senior Correspondent for Sky News.
As Bureau Chief she set up the Sky News Northern office, covering most of the major breaking news stories in the region for the next 18 years. From Hillsborough to James Bulger, Dr Shipman to the London bombings, she has been involved in most areas of TV news production, including documentaries, forward planning and the role of senior News Editor.
She began her lecturing career at the University of Central Lancashire, working with the BBC on the highly successful joint Foundation Journalism course. She has also designed a post- graduate course for Al Jazeera television.
In addition to lecturing, Shirley works as a freelance journalist and media consultant. She is a member of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council responsible for accrediting Journalism courses at universities throughout the UK.
Gail Mellors
Executive Board
Gail Mellors is Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Broadcast Journalism degree course based at the Centre of Broadcasting and Journalism at Nottingham Trent University.
She is an experienced journalist with more than 20 years in the industry working across platforms in both national and regional news.
She remains a freelance on-screen journalist for ITV, often reporting and presenting for ITV Central News.
She started work with ITV as a reporter for Yorkshire’s Calendar News and went on to present and produce the programme as well as reporting on diverse range of news stories and documentaries for both regional and network news.
Gail began her career as trainee reporter at the Derby Evening Telegraph where she became the paper’s crime reporter and then deputy news editor before working as a freelance reporter for national newspapers namely the Sun and the Daily Mail.
She has also spent time working for ITN and the former GMTV as well as Radio Trent, in Nottingham.
Matt Walsh
Executive Board
Matt Walsh is the head of the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University, one of the UK’s leading centres for journalism education and research.
He became an academic in 2014 after more than 20 years as a working journalist. After completing a BJTC-accredited postgraduate course at Falmouth University in the mid-90s he worked for the BBC before joining ITN, eventually becoming a senior programme editor at ITV News and then Deputy Editor of the ITV News Channel. Matt left ITN for The Times where he was a member of its digital management team, and launched both its podcast service and pioneered its video journalism.
Matt has also worked as an editor in international news at Al Jazeera, and as a training and editorial consultant for the Thomson Reuters Foundation.