Laura Demeter

Laura Demeter is a postdoctoral researcher at the Competence Center for Heritage Studies and Technologies (KDWT), Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg. She holds a PhD in Heritage Studies (IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, 2017) and has held postdoctoral positions at the Leibniz Institute for History and Culture in Eastern Europe (GWZO) and the University of Bucharest. Her work focuses on 20th-century cultural heritage in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly under authoritarian regimes and post-regime transitions.

Demeter has contributed to international projects like H2020 EU Project COURAGE and the interdisciplinary UrbanMetaMapping consortium. She specializes in cultural opposition, transnational activism, and disaster documentation (e.g., earthquake-damaged cities in Romania). As an external expert for the European Commission and the European Institute for Cultural Routes, she evaluates heritage-related research projects.

Her recent publications address topics such as authoritarian urban planning, heritage destruction as human rights violations, and postwar reconstruction. She has presented at conferences including European Cultural Heritage Summit and Association for Slavic, East European & Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). Her editorial work includes co-editing Transforming Cities (2025) and Cartographies of Catastrophes (2026).