Dr. Heidi Tworek is a Canada Research Chair and associate professor of international history and public policy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her work examines the history and policy around media, hate speech, health communications, international organizations, and platform governance. She directs the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at UBC. She is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation as well as a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
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Heidi's prize-winning book, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945, was published in 2019 by Harvard University Press. She has co-edited two volumes: Exorbitant Expectations: International Organizations and the Media in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2018), and The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business (2019). Heidi has published or has forthcoming over 45 book chapters and journal articles on media and communications, journalism history, German and transatlantic politics, the digital economy, the history of technology, legal history, digital history, and the history of health. She is currently working on several projects, including global platform governance, the history and policy of health communications and an edited volume on the interwar world.
Heidi is committed to bringing a historical sensibility to policy discussions. She regularly writes policy briefs on topics including Covid-19 communications, online harassment, and platform governance. She has briefed or advised officials and policymakers from governments around the world on media, democracy, and the digital economy. She has also served on the steering committee for multiple transatlantic and international working groups on transatlantic relations, freedom of expression, and global platform governance.
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Her writing has been published in English and German in major magazines and newspapers, including Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Politico, The Globe and Mail, Columbia Journalism Review, War on the Rocks, Wired, Nieman Journalism Lab, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, ZEIT, Internationale Politik, and The Conversation. Her work has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Financial Times, CNN, STAT News, Globe & Mail, and many others. Heidi also appears regularly on national radio and television in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Alongside her research, Heidi co-edits the Journal of Global History and the Routledge International Studies in Business History series. She manages the United Nations History Project website to provide materials for researching and teaching the history of international organizations. She is a co-founder of the Platform Governance Research Network, which brought together 15 institutions from around the world and held its first annual global conference in March 2020. She also chairs the board of Digital Action, an NGO dedicated to strengthening democratic rights in the digital age.
She received her BA (Hons) in Modern and Medieval Languages with a double first from Cambridge University and earned her MA and PhD in History from Harvard University. Her PhD received the Herman E. Krooss Prize for best dissertation in business history. She previously held the position of Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer on History in the History Department at Harvard University. Heidi has held visiting fellowships at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the Transatlantic Academy in Washington DC, Birkbeck, University of London, and the Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany. She has also taught as a guest lecturer at Freie Universität, Berlin and Göttingen University. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Select Awards and Fellowships
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SSHRC Arts Explore Grant (CAD $4,000), 2021
Historical Innovation in Explanatory Journalism, SSHRC Partnership Grant sub grant (CAD $17,500), 2021
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Arts Undergraduate Research Award, UBC Faculty of Arts (CAD $3,000), 2021
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Covid-19 Solutions, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, UBC (CAD $19,500), 2020
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SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant (CAD $24,940), 2020
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Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters, Language Science Initiative, UBC (CAD $8,000), 2020
Co-applicant, COVID-19 Rapid Publication Working Group, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, UBC (CAD $7,500), 2020
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SSHRC Exchange: Arts Workshop and Visiting Speakers (CAD $2,000), 2020
Co-applicant, Genomics in Society Interdisciplinary Research Team (CAD $1.4 million), 2020
Public History Initiative, UBC History Department (CAD $5,000), 2019
Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge Grant (CAD $46,150), 2019
Co-applicant, Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant (CAD $2.5 million), 2019
Public History Initiative, UBC History Department (CAD $3,000), 2019
Fieldwork Project Grant/Public History Initiative, UBC History Department (CAD $4,500), 2019
Mitacs Globalink Research Award, Canada (x2) (CAD $12,000), 2019
Arts Undergraduate Research Award, UBC Faculty of Arts ($3,000), 2019
Public History Initiative, UBC History Department (CAD $3,000), 2018
Fieldwork Project Grant, UBC History Department (CAD $4,500), 2018
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German Historical Institute Conference Organization Grant ($13,000), 2018
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Bridge Funding, Vice President Research Office and History Dept, UBC (CAD $4,000), 2018
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Co-applicant, SSHRC Connection Grant (CAD $38,567), 2018
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Co-applicant, SSHRC Insight Development Grant (CAD $24,800), 2018
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SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant (CAD $24,954), 2018
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Mitacs Globalink Research Award, Canada (x2) (CAD $12,000), 2018
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History Department Fieldwork Project Grant, UBC (CAD $4,878), 2017–2018
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Faculty of Arts International Travel Grant, UBC (CAD $2,000), 2017
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Bridge Funding, Vice President Research Office and History Dept, UBC (CAD $4,680), 2017
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History Department Summer Fieldwork Project Grants (x2), UBC (CAD $9,477), 2017
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Transatlantic Academy Fellowship, German Marshall Fund, Washington DC ($70,000), 2016–2017
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Visiting Fellowship, “Reluctant Internationalists,” Birkbeck, University of London ($1,300), 2016
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Mitacs Globalink Research Award, Canada (CAD $5,000), 2016
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Faculty of Arts Research Grant, University of British Columbia (CAD $4,000), 2016
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History Department Summer Fieldwork Project Grant, UBC (CAD $5,000), 2016
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SSHRC Connection Grant (CAD $23,736), 2016
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Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund, “History Lab,” UBC (CAD $50,000), 2016
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Faculty of Arts International Travel Grant, University of British Columbia (CAD $2,000), 2015
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Hampton Fund New Faculty Research Grant, UBC (CAD $10,000), 2015
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The Star Family Prize for Excellence in Advising, Harvard University (nominated), 2015
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John R. Marquand Award for Exceptional Advising and Counseling, Harvard (nominated), 2015
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Leibniz Summer Fellowship, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam ($6,700), 2014
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Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History ($500), 2014
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United Nations Foundation Operational Support Grants (awarded four times at $20,000), 2012– 2016
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Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (awarded twelve times), 2008–2015
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German Historical Institute Conference Grant for German Studies Association ($3,000), 2013
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Harvard University Dissertation Completion Fellowship (declined), 2012–2013
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Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Travel Grant to Business History Conference ($1,000), 2012
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Bok Center Certificate of Achievement in the Practice of Teaching in Higher Education, 2012
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Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) Travel Grant ($1,500), 2011
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Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Research Grant, Harvard University ($3,000), 2011
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History Department Summer Grant, Harvard University ($4,000 each), 2007–08, 2011
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Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship (honorary recipient), 2009–2010
Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship ($30,000), 2009–2010
DAAD Dissertation Research Fellowship ($12,500), 2009–2010
James Souverine Gallo ‘27 Memorial Scholarship, Harvard University ($500), 2008–2009
Center for European Studies Summer Travel Grant, Harvard University ($6,000), 2008
Herchel Smith Travel Grant, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University ($10,000), 2006–2009
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Kurt Hahn University Prize (Highest mark in German at Cambridge University), 2004, 2006
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The Sands Senior Scholarship, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. 2003, 2004