Following a substantial career as an Education Practitioner, teaching across different international systems and curriculum frameworks, Anna Du Plessis made the decision to pursue a research career while teaching in part-time positions. She completed a Doctorate in Education Leadership in 2010, focusing on the implications of the out-of-field teaching phenomenon for professional development programmes, and entered academia full-time later in the same year to complete her PhD, which explored the lived meaning of out-of-field teaching practices for quality education, with a specific focus on educational leadership and teaching pedagogies.