Laura Tradii

Dr. Laura Tradii is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of History at the University of Kent. Her research focuses on the cultural history of twentieth-century warfare, particularly the management and commemoration of fallen soldiers in Europe. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and a MSc in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the University of Oxford.

Her current book project, Fallen of Total Defeat: German War Dead in Socialist East Germany, 1945–90, examines how East Germany managed German military remains during the Cold War. Previous work included a Wellcome Trust-funded project on forensic anthropology and human rights at the London School of Economics.

Key research interests include Cold War studies, the ethics of war dead management, and the intersection of history and anthropology. Her publications analyze practices around exhumations, memorialization, and spatial memory in post-war contexts.

• Awards: British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, Vice-Chancellor’s Award (Cambridge)
• Grants: Wellcome Trust-funded Human Rights/Human Remains Project
• Labs/Teams: Collaborations with forensic anthropologists and Cold War historians