Wendy Loretto

Wendy has 30 years of experience teaching, researching and managing in Higher Education. She gained her PhD in social psychology from the University of Edinburgh, where she has undertaken a variety of roles in the Business School, including Dean from 2016-2024. She holds a Chair in Organisational Behaviour, and currently co-chairs the University of Edinburgh’s Gender Equality Committee.

Her commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion is illustrated through her research, which addresses the real-world challenges in labour markets arising from demographic ageing. Her current research agenda is focused on health and wellbeing at work, with current UK-Government funded projects promoting workplace support for healthy ageing. Her research has also attracted funding from industry, charity partners and the EU. It is published widely in top international journals, including Work, Employment and Society, Gender, Work and Organization and Ageing & Society.

Wendy’s external roles also reflect her twin passions of equality and promoting excellence in business education. She is Chair of AMBA & BGA, one of the three global accreditation bodies for business and management, and is on the Boards of abdrn Financial Fairness Trust and the Society for Advancement of Management Studies. She sits on the International Advisory Boards of King’s Business School, London and Corvinus University, Budapest.

At the University of St Andrews Business School, Wendy is a member of the Centre for Research into Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (CREDI) and Work, Organisations & Society (WOS) Thematic Group, and is keen to work with colleagues across the School and University.  She will be involved in group and individual mentoring, helping PhD students and early career colleagues (or indeed any colleagues) in the following areas:

• navigating the PhD
• getting your first job post-PhD
• career development and progression
• applying for research funding
• leveraging real-world impact from research.

Wendy's research areas include:

• health and wellbeing at work
• diversity and inclusion
• intersectionality, especially gender and age
• changing nature of later-life work and retirement
• interdisciplinary research
• life-course methods
• using AI in research outputs.