Laura’s doctoral research is an exploration of the lived experience of second career academics or ‘pracademics’, focusing on the transition to academia, professional identity and future possible selves. The research draws on arts based educational research methods to facilitate the construction of narrative identity across three interlinked interviews. Following a background in secondary teaching, initial teacher education and academic literacy support, Laura moved into Educational Development becoming Course Lead for the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, a course for new lecturers. She convenes the first module of the course; Developing Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Higher Education and supervises action research projects in the second module. Laura is interested in the relational aspect of teaching in higher education and how relationships and connections enrich our educational experiences. Additional research interests include the use of freewriting in academic contexts and the value of arts based methods in teaching and research.