Dr Tamara McNeill

Dr Tamara McNeill is Head of Impact Evaluation and Insight (maternity cover) at Oxford Brookes University, with over 15 years’ experience in research and evaluation across professional and academic contexts. Holding a PhD in policy evaluation, she began her career exploring how evidence can inform effective decision-making — a focus that continues to shape her work.

Over the past five years, Tamara has specialised in evaluating widening access and student success initiatives, designing and delivering studies to rigorous standards that generate actionable, impactful insights. She has previously worked across the public, private, and higher education sectors in research and consultancy roles, often focusing on how learning and skills can address socio-economic inequality and benefit individuals and organisations.

Tamara is committed to building community and fostering learning through her work, and to collaborating closely with stakeholders to ensure that insights and evaluation findings are genuinely responsive and useful. She is also a co-convenor of the evaluation Sub-Group of the FACE Access and Participation Plan (APP) Special Interest Group (SIG) and of the FACE Student Success SIG.