Andrew J. Hobson is Professor of Teacher Learning and Development, and Associate Dean for Research & Knowledge Exchange in the School of Education, University of Brighton, UK. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, and he was appointed to and served as a member of the expert panel for Education in the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF2021), the UK’s system for assessing the quality of research conducted in its universities.

In his earlier working life, Andy was a teacher, head of department and mentor, a Senior Research Officer at the National Foundation for Educational Research, Lecturer in Educational Research Methods at the University of Leeds, Associate Professor in Teacher and School Development at the University of Nottingham, and Research Professor and Director of Research in Education at Sheffield Hallam University.

Andy’s research focuses on professional learning, development and well-being, with particular emphasis on mentoring for trainee and early career teachers, and head teachers. He has published widely and led a large number of research, evaluation and knowledge exchange projects in these areas, including the 6-year longitudinal DfE-funded ‘Becoming a Teacher’ study from 2003-2009. Amongst Andy’s scholarly contributions, he is responsible for developing the concepts of ‘judgementoring’ and ‘reality aftershock’, and for the development of the ONSIDE Mentoring framework, which has been adopted and brought about positive impacts in a number of different contexts.