About
My name is Megan Herdt (she/her)
Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology in the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology at the University of Kentucky. My research program broadly investigates ways that systems of privilege, power, and oppression intersect to shape workers’ vocational experiences with implications for their vocational and general wellbeing. I use social justice-oriented frameworks such as the Psychology of Working Theory and critical intersectional feminism to study access to quality work and impacts of work conditions on need satisfaction and health. My goals are to promote access to better work for more people, to challenge oppression and exploitation within the world of work, and to contribute to a liberatory world of work that prioritizes wellbeing over profit.

Work and Liberation Lab
Welcome to the Work and Liberation Lab! We conduct research with two aims: to advance liberation within vocational and counseling psychology and to contribute to a more liberatory world of work.
Our research is grounded in the belief that "work is not the problem. Our souls glow and grow from wanting to create, heal, scheme. Capitalism is the problem. Racism is the problem. Ableism is the problem. All we do to keep ourselves and our kin here is not the problem.”
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- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
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Research Focus
The world of work has been shaped by systems of capitalism, neoliberalism, and white supremacy that exploit and oppress workers. I am building a research agenda that advocates for workers’ wellbeing and investigates work as a social and commercial determinant of health from an intersectional perspective with a focus on LGBTQ+ communities.