Dr Stephan HOUGHTON has been teaching academic English in higher education since 2005. He began his career as a research scientist, completing his PhD at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (1992) on the growth and photosynthetic physiology of Brazilian savannah trees. After two post-doctoral research positions working on agricultural and horticultural crop productivity (Institute of Arable Crops Research and University of Reading, UK), he became a technical manager for the Horticultural Development Research Council in 1998. He then completed an MSc in Computing Science at Imperial College London, UK (2001), before working as a software analyst-developer for Goldman Sachs International, London.
Following his move to France in 2005, he started teaching English at the Universities of Auvergne and Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France. Qualifying as a state teacher of English in 2011, he then began teaching medical, pharmacy and postgraduate research students at the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy, Clermont-Ferrand, France. Since 2014 he has taught staff, postgraduates, and undergraduates at the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies of the University of Reunion Island, France. His main teaching interests are in English for Academic Purposes, Scientific and Technical English, and the Use of Film and Video in Language Teaching. He is currently implementing a framework for EMI (English Medium Instruction) for teaching staff at the University of Reunion Island.