Rate My Professor Helen Poole

Professor Helen Poole is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching, Learning and Digital) at University College Birmingham, where she oversees the higher education portfolio’s design, performance and quality standards. Her career began in the criminal justice sector, including roles in prison and probation services, before she became a lecturer in criminology at Coventry University and subsequently Head of the School of Psychological, Social and Behavioural Sciences. In 2016 she joined the University of Northampton as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences. She later moved to Staffordshire University, serving first as Dean for the School of Law, Policing and Forensics and then as Executive Dean of Justice, Security and Sustainability, managing diverse discipline portfolios and leading cross-institutional initiatives.

Helen remains an active researcher in criminology. She has completed a project on the use of digital forensics in child sexual exploitation cases, co-led a large EU project on firearms, acted as consultant to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime Firearms Directive, published in international journals, and co-authored the textbook Firearms: Crime, Consequences and Control. She holds an LLB in Law from the University of Wolverhampton, an MA in International Criminology from Sheffield University, and an EdD from the University of Birmingham. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the National Council for Entrepreneurship Education, and serves as a governor for a secondary school in Coventry.