Kate Woodthorpe

I am a sociologist who specialises in the end of life and over the last 20 years I have completed funded research and published widely on funeral costs and practice, families, cemetery usage and professional development for staff in the deathcare industry. Currently I am co-director of the world-leading research centre, the Centre for Death and Society, and the only UK academic on the editorial boards of the three major death studies journals: Death Studies, Omega and Mortality. I am also previous Editor-in-Chief of Mortality.

Beyond funded research and publishing, I have a strong and ongoing commitment to research impact, and I am the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science Director of Knowledge Exchange. Drawing on my work on funeral poverty, in 2016 I acted as Special Advisor to the Work and Pensions Select Committee Inquiry into Bereavement Benefits, after which I commissioned and edited a wide ranging policy review on the implications of devolution for death, dying and bereavement in 2017. In 2019 at their request I gave evidence to the Competition and Markets Authority as part of their investigation into the funeral industry. Most recently in 2024 I am leading a UKRI Policy Support Fund study on grave reuse to submit to the UK Law Commission as part of their review of burial, cremation and new funerary methods.

I am committed to academic research being accessible and useful to policy, practice and the general public. I became a Churchill Fellow in 2023 and over the years my work has been widely disseminated through the media, including numerous appearances on BBC Radio 4 Today programme, BBC Breakfast, and features in The Guardian and The Telegraph. I have undertaken consultancy work with Royal London, Axa SunLife and Volunteer Cornwall.

I have successfully supported six students to the completion of their PhDs and have been twice voted Supervisor of the Year by the University of Bath and Students' Union. You can hear me talk about my approach to supporting students, colleagues and the next generation of academics on the Death Studies podcast.

Follow me on X @katewoodybath

Research interests

• Funeral practice
• Families at the end of life
• Qualitative methods

Research projects

• Exploring the relationship between cremation and grief
• See Kate talk about her funeral poverty research in her lecture entitled 'Why should we care about dying?'
• Hear Kate talk about her research on Radio 4's 'Thinking Allowed' with Laurie Taylor.
• Her Affording a Funeral project has also been covered in The Guardian.