Alison Wolf

Educated in Oxford, Alison Wolf came to Somerville in 1967 to study PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). She spent her early career after graduation in the United States as a policy analyst for the government, going on to work as a guest professor at the Institute of Education in London.

Wolf is the Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at King’s College London. She specialises in the relationship between education and the labour market. She has a particular interest in training and skills policy, universities, the medical workforce and gender issues. She is closely involved in policy debate and currently advises the government as an expert on skills policy. Her publications include The XX Factor: How Working Women Are Creating A New Society (Profile Books 2013), Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth (Penguin 2002) and Remaking Tertiary Education (Resolution Foundation 2016). Wolf is also a presenter for BBC Radio 4’s Analysis.

In 2011, Wolf completed The Wolf Review, a review of vocational education. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2012 she was appointed a crossbench life peer and took her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Wolf of Dulwich.

She is a member of the House of Commons Advisory Committee for Education. Wolf is an Honorary Fellow of Somerville. She is also President of the Somerville Association and Chair of its Committee.

Alison Wolf on Somerville ‘Somerville was and is an Enlightenment endeavour… I came up to Somerville knowing nothing whatsoever about why it bore its name. What I did know was its reputation as the most intellectual of the women’s colleges, so going there meant you were aiming very high’.