Dr Matt Finn

Matt's office hours can be found here. He is co-Director of Education and Student Experience for Geography, Streatham. You can contact him using this email address for queries in this role.

Matt explores changes in the contemporary conditions of education, and works to understand how childhood and young people's lives vary globally. He brings this to his educational leadership, and scholarship of geographical learning and education, which is informed by a participatory action research ethos. Matt lectures on a wide range of courses and seeks to combine enthusiasm for geography with opportunities for students and educators to shape learning together.

He received the Royal Geographical Society's Taylor and Francis Award in 2023 for demonstrating "excellence in the practice and promotion of teaching in higher education" and was awarded Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2024 and a National Teaching Fellowship in 2026.

Through collaboration he seeks to connect and resource students and educators, and promote and realise the promise of higher education and ‘geography for all’. As an Exeter Education Incubator fellow Matt worked with students to research experiences of transitions to university following the introduction of the reformed A Levels in England. In a second project he explored 'online resources and narrowcasting the curriculum'.

His published work spans the geographies of education and childhood, geographical education and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Shaped by the dialogue between geography and education, he draws on geographical perspectives to inform his educational research and practice, and engages with educational scholarship to strengthen geography across schools and higher education.

Matt's Masters and PhD studies - on the rising use of data in education settings - were enabled by an ESRC Quota Studentship. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers, a member of the Geography Education Research Collective and the Association for National Teaching Fellows. He is a part of the editorial collective of Geography - the Geographical Association’s international journal for lecturers, teachers and students in post-16 geography. He was Education Officer for the RGS-IBG Geographies of Children, Youth & Families Research Group (2018-2024), and a committee member, and later inaugural Dissertation Prize Co-ordinator for the RGS-IBG Geography and Education Research Group (2019-2026).

Before academia he had a variety of jobs including being a Human Resources administrator with a city council, a teacher, a local education administrator and a church-based pastoral worker with students. He is a trained mental health first aider.

Research interests:

• Geographies of education and schooling
• Childhood, youth and young people
• Geographical education and learning
• Participatory Action Research (PAR)
• Critical geographies of data

Qualifications and Professional Recognition:

BA Geography (Durham)
MA Research Methods - Geography (Durham)
PhD Geography (Durham)
Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (Exeter)

Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy

National Teaching Fellowship