One of the first computer scientists to undertake serious research in multimedia and hypermedia, she has been at its forefront ever since. The influence of her work has been significant in many areas including digital libraries, the development of the Semantic Web, and the emerging research discipline of Web Science.

She is the UK's only Regius Professor in Computer Science and has led a major review of Artificial Intelligence for the UK Government. Wendy has also been appointed as Chair of the Ada Lovelace Institute.