Our Education Team
Helen Bradford, Ph.D.
Early Years and Literacy Advisor
Dr. Helen Bradford is a passionate lifelong early years educator who has published widely over her career. She has worked in the early years for almost 30 years, where her specialist area of expertise is developing childhood language and literacy 0-8 years. She taught at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge between 2003 to 2015, where she led literacy on the Early Years and Primary PGCE course, alongside Mrs. Penny Coltman, currently, the Early Years Education Mentor at CAMathories, and Dr. David Whitebread, the late Founding Chief Education Officer at CAMathories.
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Dr. Bradford gained her Master's degree entitled 'The Perceptions of Three- and Four-Year-Old Children as Writers' from the University of Cambridge in 2007, receiving a top 'A' grade for her research. Helen moved to UCL (University College London) Insititute of Education in 2015, where she lectured for four years across early childhood Master's courses, working with diverse cohorts of students from across the globe. Her Ph.D. research, entitled 'Co-Constructing Writing Pedagogy With Two-and-Three-Year-Old Children', won the 2019 United Kingdom Literacy Association prize for best thesis.
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For a selection of Dr. Bradford's recent publications, please click here.
Lorna Ayton, Ph.D.
Mathematics Advisor
Dr. Ayton is a member of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in the Waves research group at the University of Cambridge. She uses theoretical models to predict the sound generated by solid bodies in unsteady flows. Currently, her work concentrates on applications to aircraft noise, and along with colleagues in the Engineering Department at the University of Southampton she is developing new designs for reduced-noise aeroengines. Dr. Ayton was admitted to Churchill College, University of Cambridge, in 2007 to study B.A. Math (graduated with First Class Honors), followed by Part III Math (graduated with Distinction), and then for a Ph.D. in Math which she completed in 2014. Dr. Ayton's Ph.D. thesis: "Asymptotic Approximations for the Sound Generated by Aerofoils in Unsteady Subsonic Flows" is awarded "Outstanding Thesis Prize" by Springer. For a list of mathematics research papers that Dr. Ayton recently published, please click here. Dr. Ayton will give us advice to ensure that mathematics is well-applied in our games and that learning math can be fun and rewarding! Please click here to sign up and go to Dr. Lorna's Classroom.
Penny Coltman
Early Years Education Mentor
Penny accumulated wide experience throughout the range of early years education as a teacher and consultant before engaging in an academic career focusing on initial teacher training. She has worked widely with educational publishers, including, BBC worldwide, and acts as an early years consultant. Penny’s work includes games and practical classroom resources to support the teaching of early mathematics, and primary science and mathematics resources for use on interactive whiteboards. Her two practical resources supporting the teaching of early mathematics, produced as a collaborative project between two major publishers, won national awards. Penny’s research interests include the development of mathematical metalanguage in young children, scientific conceptual development, classroom talk and self-regulation in relation to very young children. Penny currently lectures at the University of Cambridge in Early Years Education and in 2007 Penny was awarded a prestigious Pilkington Prize by the University of Cambridge in recognition of her contributions to Early Years teacher education.
David Whitebread, Ph.D. [1948-2021]
Founding Chief Education Officer
Dr. Whitebread, had been the Acting Director (External Relations), Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Dr. Whitebread worked in many areas of educational research in the 2000s. Dr. Whitebread had more than 30 yeas of research experience in children learning through play. David was one of the first members of the Faculty of Education when it was founded. Dr. Whitebread was also a consultant advising many educational institutions in different parts of the world to improve their early childhood learning programmes. Dr. David Whitebread had advised the pedagogy, curriculum and the assessment of our software. He also wrote the content of the games with our Early Years Education Mentor, Ms Penny Coltman.
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With deep sadness, we are announcing that Dr David Whitebread passed away on April 13, 2021. Dr. Whitebread was one of the founders and the founding Chief Education Officer of CAMathories®. Please click here to see more of his contribution to CAMathories®.
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For a list of Dr. Whitebread's publications, please click here.
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Every year, PEDAL Research Centre at the University of Cambridge hosts a David Whitebread Memorial Lecture to commemorate and honor the contribution and achievement of Dr. Whitebread in the area of early childhood education globally and particularly his contribution to the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. See this year's lecture here.
Simone Teufel, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor
Professor Teufel is a full Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences and Technology in the University of Cambridge. Prof. Teufel has twenty years of research experience in information and languages, and in particular, natural language processing and computational linguistics. Prof. Teufel will be advising our project on the application of natural language processing (NLP) technologies to our games and software.