She attended Christchurch Girls' High School and then moved to Dunedin to study at the University of Otago.
She was a co-researcher at the University of Oslo on the Voices of the Future project, a study of young people growing up in a changing climate.
She is also director of the university's Sustainable Citizenship and Civic Imagination: Hei Puāwaitanga research group.
She was a lead author on UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C.
[7] In the 2021 New Year Honours, Hayward was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to political science, particularly sustainability, climate change and youth.