Dr Lorna Waddington

Profile

I am an Associate Professor of International History in the School of History and the University of Leeds Academic Integrity Lead. My work spans two connected fields: the history of genocide and the international response to crimes against humanity, and the ethics of academic integrity and GenAI in higher education.

I gained a First Class honours degree in History and an MA in Modern History (Distinction) at Leeds, where I also completed my doctoral thesis, Confronting the 'Conspiracy': Ideology, Diplomacy and Propaganda in Hitler's Crusade Against International Bolshevism, 1919–1943. After two years lecturing at the University of Sheffield I joined the School of History at Leeds in 2005. I have been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2011 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2024, having been a member since 2011.

In 2022 I received the European Network for Academic Integrity award for outstanding activism, recognising my work at Leeds and across the wider academic integrity community, including with UK government. In 2025 I was elected First Vice President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. My research on AI-text detection has become a widely cited international reference point; my written evidence on the risks of generative AI to national security was cited by name in the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy's 2026 report to Parliament.

I am available to the media for comment on Nazi Germany and the British reaction to ethnic cleansing and genocide in the twentieth century. I also speak and comment widely on generative AI in higher education: academic integrity, critical thinking skills, the use of GenAI in teaching and research, and the realities of using these tools — the good, the bad and the ugly.

Responsibilities

• University Academic Integrity Lead

Qualifications

• BA in History
• MA in Modern History
• PhD
• PGCLTHE

Professional memberships

• British International History Group
• German History Society
• Higher Education Academy
• International Association of Genocide Scholars
• International Network of Genocide Scholars
• Royal Historical Society

Student education

I teach across the history curriculum at all levels, with a focus on the history of Nazi Germany, genocide and the international response to crimes against humanity. My teaching is research-led, drawing directly on my own archival work in collections including the German Bundesarchiv, the UK National Archives, the Wiener Library and the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and brings scholars, practitioners and survivors into the student experience.

I also teach history students critical thinking and the ethical use of GenAI by working with the tools themselves, equipping them to interrogate AI outputs and recognise their limitations. I designed this approach, which is pioneering within history and the humanities: I have presented it at UNESCO, Wonkhe and other national and international forums and I am currently writing a commissioned piece for Jisc on this topic.