Dr Camila Devis-Rozental
Principal Academic and Author at Bournemouth University
Education
I am on a quest to humanise education by inspiring educators to practice with their head (knowledge), hand (the way they do things) and heart (considering their emotions and relationships they build) as interrelated and inseparable. I am passionate about representation, widening participation and using education as a tool to enable social justice.
My research centres around student engagement, belonging and wellbeing, and I currently work at Bournemouth University embedding a positive organisational culture. I am director and Trustee of the Lightyear Foundation, a charity breaking down barriers for children with disabilities interested in STEM, and I am also the wellness expert advisor for the Diocese of Salisbury Academy trust with over 900 teachers and 4,000 students, supporting them in their wellness strategy.
This year I published the book: The student wellbeing toolkit: Preparing for life at college, university and beyond. It explores wellbeing considering different dimensions based on my research, but also my lived experience as a disabled lifelong learner. In it I share knowledge, activities, and ideas to support students during this difficult transition, or indeed any transition. More importantly, I encourage them to put their wellbeing at the centre of what they do, to enable them to flourish so they can have a positive impact on the world.
I am a wheelchair user who lives in pain, but you will always see me with a smile on my face because I feel privileged to be who I am and do what I do, I feel that my purpose is bigger than me.
As a result of Covid-19 my vocal cords are now damaged, something which has added a different dimension to my disability and my way of being. I can no longer teach or speak for long periods of time, and this has been a difficult adjustment. But, as my Papo always says, you never give up and I am finding new ways to share my passion and to seek the collateral beauty in this new way of being, so I can fulfil my purpose and my dream of humanising education and changing the world with a smile.
“We are each as unique as a fingerprint, inimitable and complex; there’s nobody else in the world that has our strengths or our talents and that’s a pretty cool thing. So let’s wear that uniqueness with pride, let’s use it to lift each other up and to make this fractured world a better place.”
Disability Power 100 2023 profile information has been self-submitted by the profile subject. Shaw Trust understands and respects that disability and impairment descriptors and language use varies from person to person. Shaw Trust assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or discrepancies in the content of this, or any other, profile page.
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