Dr Melanie Smith, Founder & Academic Coach

I'm a published author of peer-reviewed papers, chapters, books, and edited collections. I've served as a consultant to the European Parliament, held a tenured Associate Professor position at Cardiff University for over 13 years, and led writing courses for faculty. With 18+ years of experience, I've contributed to research, publishing, program development, and teaching/supervision at all levels at a research intensive University in the UK. I'm dedicated to assisting academic writers in fostering a better relationship with their writing, maximizing productivity while minimizing time investment. An academic lawyer by training, I work with clients across all disciplines from the High Arts (with research as practice) to the hard physical sciences and everyone in between. My client base has ranged from Dance/Performing Arts, to Fashion, to the traditional humanities subjects, through social and health sciences to the biological and natural sciences. Good writing is good writing, and although some disciplines have their odd quirks, I’ve come across all of them by now.

I established Academic Coach in 2019 to provide the skills, advice, and guidance I wish I had, utilizing cutting-edge research in writing productivity, neuroscience, and behavioral psychology. Academic Coach offers clear, impactful coaching and training for individuals seeking to enhance their writing skills and excel professionally. Over the past six years, I've delivered effective coaching and training to 800+, and over 50 training events for Universities globally, empowering academics to achieve writing success. My Framework for Writing Success underpins all coaching and training, ensuring a seamless transition from theory to practice.

Ways to work with me: academics

Click on the image below to find out more about each of my main programmes

Results I have helped my clients achieve

💥 Triple their writing output per year by overhauling their writing habit and how they thought, felt about and executed their writing
💥 Helped them to obtain new academic positions due to rapid increase in outputs - maximised their marketability in the field, enabling job security and better conditions
💥 Enabled clients to start and finish papers in a much quicker time scale, with ease and confidence
💥 Helped clients achieve promotion due to increase in publications and helping them draft the application
💥 Client’s have rediscovered their joy in research and publishing once they mastered the writing techniques that elevated their writing above the competition
💥 Client’s have completed, submitted and published those difficult 'big pieces' that were hanging around in the drawer with confidence and ease
💥 Achieving consistent publication in the top journals in their field
💥Removed the overwhelmed feeling of having no time to do anything meaningful in terms of research even in a time scarce environment
💥 Enabled them to understand, interpret and implement feedback for successful publication
💥 Learned how to clarify their arguments, contribution and significance of their work to have maximum impact in the field
💥Helped them to win prizes for their papers, books and conference presentations
💥Enabled clients to change how they chose the projects they worked on projects for maximum motivation, and to understand the range of difficulty of the various projects they were undertaking 
💥 Taught clients how to move papers from also-ran contributions to papers that are published in the top journals
💥Helped them to develop the skills to navigate their careers to better outcomes

what kind of coaching do I offer?

The coaching profession can be a minefield. There are lots of coaches available out there, but how to choose which one is right for you? First, what kind of coaching are you looking for? There’s coaching, and then there’s coaching.

Academic Coach is not an executive career coach, or a life coach. I will not ask you to colour in the wheel of life, nor am I in the business of moving your career from one profession to another. I provide specialist writing and career training for academics to those who are looking to excel at this particular skillset to move their career forward. The main focus of my service then is excelling at writing; notoriously difficult to do well, efficiently and without procrastination or dull, prosaic text.

I provide specialist academic career training in addition to writing training because an academic career is rooted and tied to the quality and quantity of the writing that is produced.

How to choose YOUr coach

I have free coaching resources here on the website (FREE COURSES IN THE MENU) and provided to my community (to join for free, please subscribe to the Newsletter) including my blog. The paid Programmes and Services on offer are detailed on this site and links are provided to my Learning platform for more information. It is important to have a coach that fits your style, and you should always interview a coach before taking on the 1-1 coaching service - it is important that you can determine if you are a good fit with your coach and I offer a free no obligation consultation call for this purpose. There is no hard sell - I am here to help you find a solution, and sometimes that won’t be me, but I can signpost you to other service providers.

Lastly, experience matters. You can find a selection of testimonials on my home page and on the testimonials page on this website. You can see them on my sales pages and on my socials. It is important you find a coach with the right academic qualifications, training and experience to provide the service you need to meet your goals.

If these are hidden from your view on their webpage, don’t hire them. Anyone who isn’t transparent about prices and qualifications UPFRONT should be avoided.

Want more information as to why I coach?

Please read this short blog here that explains all!

Current writing projects

Books

M. Smith The Academic Coach’s guide to being a happier writer (2025)

Publications

Please click here to see my full publications list as of when I finished working in an institution, including my professional consultancy work.

CV

Please click here to see a summary of my teaching qualifications and academic roles.

I have also trained with Patoss in ‘Enabling Students with SpLDs to Succeed in HE through Effective use of Study Skills Certificate’ in order to support writing and study skills for dyslexic and other neurodiverse students.

Continuing professional development is a core aspect of Academic Coach’s mission to offer the best coaching and teaching to our clients and all the programmes are developed with reference to the latest research on writing and writing productivity.