Dr Tracy Gaynor Harwood

National Teaching Fellow 2004 Tracy Harwood is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University. Before joining the IOCT, Tracy was a lecturer in Marketing where her teaching methods incorporated traditional delivery approaches with online, initiatives which led to the award of NTF. As a marketing professional, she also uses her expertise to support students in developing start-up initiatives, and in 2004 was the mentor for the Graduate Business of the Year. Tracy's NTFS project is assisting colleagues to develop their links with the community, focusing on creative industries, in order to enhance skills development, for example by providing a contact point for businesses to access academic expertise and by linking students to local opportunities.   In 2007, she directed Europe's first Machinima Festival, a festival celebrating an important new medium of user generated content. In 2008, she was awarded an AHRC grant to develop creative skills workshops for traditional manufacturing sectors, working with a creative production company. Currently, she is the university's project manager for its investment in a new digital media centre being built in Leicester, working with project partners. The centre will open in Autumn 2009 and will have a wide ranging role in the dissemination of leading edge technologies to local communities.