Dr Penelope Woolf is Director of Impact and Learning Design at Oxford University Press (OUP).
Penelope leads a global team at OUP supporting colleagues to embed learning design into the development of our products and to conduct impact research. Her work centres on understanding how OUP’s products and services make a real difference in classrooms and in helping teachers and learners achieve their goals.
With over 30 years’ experience in academic, educational, and professional publishing, Penelope has held senior roles at Pearson Education, Discovery Education (Espresso), and OUP. She has also worked as a consultant for universities, EdTechs, and publishers.
Penelope taught publishing and library students at University College London on the MA in Publishing and MA in Library and Information Studies for a number of years and supervised MA dissertations.
She enjoys working across the publishing industry and was Chair of the Academic and Professional Board and a member of the Educational Publishers Council at the Publishers Association. She has delivered presentations on publishing skills and academic publishing to publishers, MA publishing course leaders, PhD students, researchers and academics. Penelope submitted evidence on behalf of OUP to the EdTech Evidence Board Project managed by the Chartered College of Teaching.
Penelope enjoys engaging with educators and policymakers and in autumn 2025 visited Pakistan to speak at three Senior Leaders’ conferences in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. She presented on “Why Evidence of Impact Matters” and “How Learning Design Transforms Educational Outcomes”. She spoke to central and local government about designing learning to achieve the best educational outcomes for every learner.
Penelope was based at Oxford University Department of Education a day a week over four months in 2017 collaborating with Professor Alis Oancea. She advised on the Departmental Review, Communications Strategy and presented to staff and graduate students on how to think strategically about academic publishing. As a Norham Fellow, she has continued to share expertise with staff on the evaluation of interventions and the impact of educational products and services. She was a member of the advisory board, chaired by Professor Judy Sebba, for the International Database of Education Systematic Reviews (IDESR).
Penelope’s commitment to education extends beyond her professional role. She has volunteered as a Teaching Assistant, served as a SEND governor, and chaired the Impact Committee at a primary school in Oxfordshire, UK.
Research interests:
Evaluating the impact of educational products and services.
Learning design and product development.