Candlestar Associates
Matt Rodda - Senior Education Associate
Our senior Associate Matt Rodda is a former Senior Civil Servant who worked in No10 and the Department for Education and Skills. Matt led comms projects in the No10 Strategic Communications Unit and was David Blunkett’s ghost writer when Mr Blunkett was Education Secretary. Matt joined the civil service from The Independent where he was education correspondent.
Since leaving the civil service Matt has run his own consultancy and this includes working on communications and policy for the Million+ group of modern UK universities and for the UK government, writing their Higher Level Skills strategy. Matt has also led other projects including ones on improving parental engagement for the government and on developing new routes into higher education, with the Young Foundation.
David Jobbins - Education Strategy Adviser
David Jobbins is Candlestar’s Education Strategy Advisor. Before joining Candlestar, he was Assistant Editor and Foreign Editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement. He was also Deputy Editor of The Round Table – the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs until 2006. David is a Special Professor in International Education at the UNESCO Centre for Comparative Education Research at the University of Nottingham. He is a member of the advisory board, the Kent Centre for Europe, University of Kent (2000- ); the international advisory council, Institute for Commonwealth Studies, University of London (2001- 07); the advisory group for the teacher mobility in the Commonwealth research project, Centre for Comparative Education Research, University of Nottingham (2003-05); and IREG–International Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence.
Paul Cheetham - Exhibitions Consultant
Ferial Salahshour - Director, Day Art Gallery
Born: 1949
BSc Chemistry, Tehran University School of Science, 1972
MA Conservation and Maintenance of works of Arts, Tehran Azad University, 2002
Ferial is a collector and researcher of Iranian contemporary art and Qajar paintings & prints. She is author of the book “Reverse paintings on glass in Iran” based on the collection of Ferial Salahshour and Dr Jahangir Kazerouni. She opened the Day Art Gallery in Tehran in 2004.