Dr Andrea Giachino

About me:

Dr Giachino (or simply Andrea) is an Education & Scholarship Lecturer and an Education Incubator Fellow in the Department of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences, part of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences. He joined the faculty in 2023, having previously worked in the University of Salford and the University of Newcastle. He is also a Member of the Royal Society of Biology, and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Dr Giachino is currently part of a team of academics working on improving the way maths and stats are taught in the university’s Medical Sciences and Neurosciences degrees. He also teaches in many of the modules that include a maths or stats component. Crucially, he is working closely with students taking those modules, to ensure that the teaching and assessment align with what they want to get out of their course. One area he is specifically investigating is the negative effects of math anxiety (the feeling of being uncomfortable with maths) and how universities can design mathematical teaching in a way that is more accessible and less threatening.

Dr Giachino’s wider research interests are in the fields of microbiology, synthetic biology, and biostatistics. He is always happy to supervise students working on their dissertation projects, and he is also an academic tutor for those in the early years of their undergraduate. One area he is especially interested in is bacterial metallobiology: the way bacteria adapt to toxic metal ions, both in the environment, and when they colonise the human body. See the Research tab at the top of this page for more information on this!

Interests:

Metals in Bacteria

Metal ions such as copper, iron, and zinc are necessary nutrients for all cells; however, some metal ions are toxic when present in excess. The antimicrobial properties of metals such as copper and silver have been exploited by humans for millennia, and they are now attracting increasing attention as a way to kill microbes where antibiotics are not available (or not working). At the same time, successful pathogens have evolved to survive both metal starvation and toxicity when colonising a host.

My research focuses on understanding how different bacteria interact with metal ions. How do metals kill bacteria? How do bacteria evolve to resist metal toxicity? Can we find ways to use metal toxicity to prevent or treat bacterial infections?

Math Anxiety and Avoidance

As a teacher of mathematics and statistics, one problem I often have to contend with is student math anxiety: that pesky, disturbing feeling of discomfort many students experience when faced with a task that involves numbers. Many of my students come to university having been convinced (typically in schools) that maths are something to be feared and avoided - or even worse, that they themselves are not "good enough" to do maths. And when I tell them that maths are an essential part of what a scientist does, they are filled with dread!

My pedagogic research aims at understanding how we can teach maths to students that already experience math anxiety, or that feel like they "can't do maths". Closely linked to this is the idea that we should teach maths in a way that makes it accessible to all, regardless of their background of other existing barriers.

Qualifications:

• Doctor of Philosophy, the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, July 2022
• Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA), Advance HE, March 2020
• Bachelor of Science in Biomolecular Sciences and Technology, the University of Trento (Italy), September 2016

Career:

2023–present: University of Exeter, Lecturer in Clinical and Biomedical Sciences

2022–2023: University of Salford, Teaching Fellow in Biomedicine (specialising in Microbiology)

2017–2022: Newcastle University, PhD student and postgraduate demonstrator