John Leach is a Higher Education Lecturer in the Institute of Childhood and Education at Leeds Trinity University. He has previously held senior leadership roles at the Universities of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds and Hull.

John has had significant research funding from various sources including the ESRC, the Wellcome Trust, the Nuffield Foundation and the European Commission. He was part of the group that established the National Science Learning Centre at York and Regional Science Learning Centres to provide world-leading CPD for science teachers (with funding from the DfE and Wellcome), and is now a Board Member of STEM Learning Ltd. He was a member of the Education Sub-panel of the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008 and was Deputy Chair of the Education Sub-panel of the Research Excellence Framework in 2014. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.