Astrid Huopalainen is an Assistant Professor (tenure track) in the field of Leadership for Creativity, in the Department of Management Studies and the Department of Art and Media. Her research is within organization theory, animal organization studies, and critical management studies, with a particularly keen interest in arts-based, posthumanist practice-based and processual approaches to issues of work and everyday organizing. She studies creative labour in the post-industrial era, gender- and diversity-related inequalities in organizations, and 'more-than-human' (multispecies) organizing. Currently, Astrid is part of the co-research project Luova Lämpiö launched in January 2024. This project seeks to foster meaningful, ethical and sustainable collaborations between partners from the creative sector with companies working with technology innovations and other sectors to address business challenges.

Also, Astrid Huopalainen serves as the Principal Investigator of the Research Council of Finland-funded multidisciplinary consortium project "PAWWS - People and Animal Wellbeing at Work and in Society" (2023-2027). Project PAWWS draws on cross-disciplinary knowledge from animal organization studies, veterinary and human medical research to create new knowledge of multispecies well-being, and examine human-animal work at the cultural, organizational, individual human and animal health level. PAWWS aims to develop insights into interconnected human-animal wellbeing at work; develop more/better ethical animal work conditions, and advance a multispecies approach to wellbeing into policy and practice.