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Annual Educational Event 2025: meet the speakers Dr Kate Woodthorpe
Who is presenting at the AAPT Annual Educational Event in September 2025?
Speaker: Dr Kate Woodthorpe
Topic: Funeral wishes and trends: what does the future hold?
Overview
We are at a point of significant change in the purpose, function and format of funerals.
These changes carry with them implications for how deceased people and their bodies/remains are perceived by families, the public, and those workforces that support the dead and bereaved. This exploratory presentation will examine contemporary funeral trends and their impact, and share the findings from our recent study on deceased people’s post-death wishes and their impact on funeral services and funeral provision.
About Kate
Dr Kate Woodthorpe is a Reader in Sociology at the University of Bath, where she is the co-Director of the Centre for Death and Society.
She has conducted research on and with the deathcare workforce and on funeral practices for over twenty years, and has advised and worked with numerous government departments and agencies, most recently the Law Commission for England and Wales, and the Competition and Markets Authority.