Rate My Professor Alison Ledger

Associate Professor Alison Ledger is Director of Teaching and Learning in the Medical School at the University of Queensland, responsible for overseeing and promoting quality in teaching, learning, and student experience. She serves as Academic Lead for Staff Development and Theme Lead for Dynamic Learner & Educator in the MD program. Having a long history at UQ, she completed her undergraduate degree and MPhil in music therapy there, followed by a role as Clinical Lecturer in a joint appointment with the Royal Children’s Hospital Brisbane, where she worked and supervised students in paediatric oncology. She obtained her PhD from the University of Limerick, Ireland, employing ethnographic, narrative, and arts-based research methods. Recruited by the University of Leeds, UK, for her qualitative expertise, she advanced from Research Fellow to Lecturer and Associate Professor, leading the BSc in Applied Health (Medical Education) programme for ten years and as Head of Intercalated Programmes overseeing twenty allied medicine programmes.

Ledger is renowned internationally for mentoring new researchers in clinical and health professions education research. She previously chaired the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) Education Research Committee and edited the book Starting Research in Clinical Education (2023). Her research promotes scholarly teaching, evidence-informed decision-making, and diversity and inclusion in clinical academic career pathways. Notable publications include “Power distance within online and face-to-face medical education in Sri Lanka and the UK” (Medical Education, 2025, with A. Ellawala and H. Wickramasekara), “Igniting the fire and seeing through the smoke: enabling medical students to see themselves as future clinical academics” (Medical Teacher, 2025, with B. Bracewell and A.-M. Reid), “Expansive learning in medical education: Putting change laboratory to work” (Medical Teacher, 2020, with C. Morris et al.), and earlier music therapy work such as “The effects of group music therapy on agitation levels of people with Alzheimer’s disease” (2005). A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), she supervises doctorates in health professions education.