Dr Laurence Wainwright

Profile

Dr Laurence Wainwright is Course Director of the MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment,Senior Departmental Lecturer, and Senior Researcher. A teaching and learning oriented academic, Laurence has 17 years experience researching, lecturing, facilitation and supervision across universities in Australia, Sweden, the United States, and United Kingdom. Laurence is passionate about the holistic development of the students who he teaches and helping them to develop into well-rounded individuals with a mindset of intellectual curiosity and courage, continuous self-improvement, and service to a mission beyond themselves. He has received numerous prizes and citations for his teaching, as well as appearing on lists recognising high scores in student feedback surveys. In addition to his primary role in the Smith School, Laurence is a Research Fellow at Green Templeton College and a Senior Researcher in the Department of Psychiatry.

Laurence’s research interests and teaching areas are multidisciplinary and diverse. They include corporate sustainability, psychiatry, pharmacology, and the mental health impacts of weather and climate change (including seasonal affective disorder). Laurence has published in journals including the British Medical Journal Mental Health, the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Evidence Based Mental Health, and Environmental Governance and Policy. In 2026 he was a named collaborator and team author on a major antidepressant trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In his role in the Department of Psychiatry he is currently working on two large international Wellcome-funded projects (animal & human) as part of GALENOS: The effect of heat exposure on mood disorders, anxiety and psychosis, and circadian disruption in mood disorders.

Laurence has served as an Associate Editor for the BMJ Mental Health as well as serving as a reviewer for a number of other medical (primarily psychiatry) and business/management journals. He is an external examiner at several leading British universities and has been a grant reviewer for the Swedish Energy Agency.

Dr Wainwright has extensive media experience providing expert opinion on a broad range of topics– particularly the intersection of environment and health. Between 2021 and 2026, he has featured in over 700 media articles, including BBC World News television, CNN, PBS Newshour, New Scientist, the Financial Times and The Guardian.

In 2024, Laurence received a University of Oxford Teaching Excellence Award for his “approach to creating an atmosphere where students can thrive..resulting in exceptional levels of group cohesion and camaraderie”. In 2022 Laurence was the recipient of a University of Oxford Excellence Award. Additionally, he was a nominee for the Vice Chancellor’s Staff Sustainability Award in 2022. 

Laurence completed his doctoral studies in Business Administration at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Laurence's PhD thesis used the contextual domain of the Swedish fishing industry in order to consider how contests to organizational legitimacy manifest around sustainability debates. Twenty months of this programme was spent at the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business, and an additional six months across multiple universities in China, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.

Laurence also holds a Master of Science in Sustainable Development from Uppsala University, a Master of Education from the Queensland University of Technology, and a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Bachelor of Accounting and Bachelor of Business (Honours) from the University of Technology Sydney.

Prior to commencing his academic career, Laurence worked briefly in the banking and healthcare sectors in finance and accounting roles. He has also spent time in the volunteer not-for-profit sector, where he worked with individuals experiencing homelessness and recovering from addiction to find employment.

Outside of work Laurence enjoys reading, fishing, caring for his pet amphibians and reptiles, and being in nature.

Teaching

University of Oxford

School of Geography and the Environment

• Four modules in the MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise & Environment (lectures include: ‘Qualitative Methods’ ‘Sustainability Leadership’ ‘The Future of Sustainable Enterprise’, and ‘Disruptive Macro Trends’
• Economics & Business for the Environment in the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance.
• Various ad-hoc: Qualitative Methods lecture to PhD candidates; tutorials in undergraduate elective SDGs & Sustainable Development

Medical Sciences Division

• Planetary Health and Sustainable Healthcare (4^th year undergraduate medical student elective)

University of California, Berkeley

School of Public Health

• Regulatory Science, Drug Development and Public Health (Graduate)

Haas School of Business, Centre for Responsible Business

• Sustainable Business in the Nordics (Executive MBA)
• Sustainable Business in the Nordics (Undergraduate)

University of Gothenburg

School of Business, Economics and Law, Department of Business Administration

• Strategy and Organization (Graduate)
• Management and Leadership (Graduate)
• Västra Götalandsregionen medical doctors professional development: Research Methodology

University of Technology Sydney

UTS Business School

• Australian Corporate Environment (Undergraduate)
• Integrating Business Perspectives (Undergraduate)
• Managing People and Organizations (Undergraduate)
• Business Futures (Undergraduate)