معرفی
Lara Wood is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Psychology specializing in Socio-Cognitive development at the University of Abertay, within the Department of Sociological and Psychological Sciences. She has been at the university since 2016 after holding a three-year Senior Research Fellowship at the University of St Andrews. Dr. Wood serves as the Programme Lead for Psychology with Development and Education and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Her educational background includes an undergraduate Psychology degree from the University of Sussex and masters and PhD from Durham University, with her doctoral research focusing on social learning mechanisms and strategies in children and chimpanzees.
Dr. Wood's research focuses on three primary areas:
- Children's social learning across cultures and contexts
- Children and young people's understanding of gender stereotypes and their impact on choices
- Children's understanding and learning of cybersecurity skills
Her recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on gender stereotypes in educational settings, social learning mechanisms, and cybersecurity education for children. Her work often employs cross-cultural and comparative approaches, examining both human and non-human subjects to understand fundamental cognitive processes.
Dr. Wood has secured significant research funding, including:
- ESRC grant of £974,000 for studying age-based imitation biases
- Templeton World Charity Foundation grant of £209,000 for research on polarized information consumption
- Multiple Abertay Studentships and other funding for gender stereotype and cybersecurity research
She leads two research labs: the Child and Youth Lab and the Gender Stereotypes Lab, which support her extensive research program examining how people perceive and are influenced by their social worlds.
