Zander Wedderburn


Alexander Allan Innes "Zander" Wedderburn was a British psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the Heriot-Watt University.

Early life

In May 1935, Wedderburn was born in Edinburgh.
Wedderburn's father was Alexander Archibald Innes Wedderburn, a lawyer and auditor to the Court of Session. Wedderburn's mother was Ellen Innes Jeans.

Education

Wedderburn graduated from Exeter College, Oxford in 1959 and was awarded a Ph.D. by Heriot-Watt in 1992.

Career

Between 1968 and 2000, Wedderburn lectured at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
After his retirement, Wedderburn founded publishing company Fledgling Press.
Wedderburn taught occupational psychology in the School of Management at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, for 32 years, and was a Professor Emeritus there. Most of his teaching was in the area of making occupational psychology available to business students and engineers, and in his final three years he established a part-time M.Sc. in Occupational Psychology taught jointly with Strathclyde University.
His main research impact was on hours of work and shiftwork, where he became an internationally known authority, building on a British Steel Corporation Fellowship in 1970-72.
His particular interest was in the interface between research and practice, with several measured practical interventions, a ten-year stint as editor of the Bulletin of European Shiftwork Topics, and founding editor of the Shiftwork International Newsletter. He was President of the British Psychological Society in 2003/2004, only the third occupational psychologist to achieve this in the past fifty years.
He was a Fellow Member of the Working Time Society.

Personal life

In 1960, Wedderburn married Bridget Johnstone. They have four children and eight grandchildren.
Wedderburn died of oesophageal cancer on 23 February, aged 81.

Works