Winnifred Louis
She/Her
I am lesbian and I am a social psychologist.//
I am a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia, and I’m happy to be part of this great project to increase the visibility of queer scientists. My research looks at how identities and norms influence decision-making in conflict, and I’ve looked at this topic in relation to social attitudes and actions in a range of contexts. My students and I have studied outcomes from environmental action to healthy eating, and from political violence and terrorism to peace-building. With my colleagues and students in the Social Change Lab, I have an interest in how psychology contributes to understanding and promoting democracy and human rights, a just and peaceful world, and a sustainable environment. We are also thinking about how psychology can inform our understanding of systemic failures and help to effect system change.
I studied at the University of Toronto and McGill University in Canada in the 1990s, and then did a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Queensland in Australia starting in 2001. I was lucky enough to get a tenure-track job, and have been here ever since! It was hard to be out professionally when I started; only 10 years after Queensland had decriminalised homosexuality and while a lot of discrimination was still legal. It’s a better world now, and truly wonderful to see LGBT-themed sessions at conferences and a thriving younger generation of brilliant queer scholars making a contribution to science and to healthy communities.