Professor Heidi Tworek is a Canada Research Chair and Professor of History and Public Policy at the University of British Columbia, where she also directs the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Her work explores how new communications technologies affect democracy in the past and present.
 
A globally recognized scholar, Professor Tworek bridges academia and public policy to tackle challenges around democracy, digital platforms, and global communication. She is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and holds non-resident fellowships at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She is also is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada’s New College of Scholars, Artists, and Scientists.
 
Tworek is the author of the award-winning book News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900–1945 (Harvard University Press, 2019) and co-editor of three other books. She has published or has forthcoming over 50 book chapters and journal articles spanning media history, platform governance, digital health policy, the history of technology, international organizations, and transatlantic relations.
 
Her research has been supported by leading institutions, including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Genome Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and Harvard University. She has co-led multimillion-dollar grants and serves as a board chair and co-founder of several global initiatives, including the Global Platform Governance Research Network and Digital Action, an NGO advancing democratic rights in the digital age.
 
A trusted voice in international policy, Professor Tworek has briefed and advised government officials around the world on democracy, digital governance, and media strategy. She regularly contributes policy briefs and reports on topics such as generative AI and platform regulation, health communications, and online harassment, and has served on multiple steering committees for transatlantic and international working groups.
 
Her writing has been published in leading outlets including Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Politico, The Globe and Mail, Wired, and The Conversation. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Financial Times, CNN, STAT News, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, among many others. She frequently appears on radio, podcasts, and television in countries including Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Germany.
 
Tworek earned her BA with double first-class honors from Cambridge University and her MA and PhD in History from Harvard University, where she won the Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History. She has held fellowships at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, D.C., Birkbeck College London, and the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam. She currently co-edits the Journal of Global History.