Lorena De Vita is a historian of international relations. Many, understandably, view the global political realm as one of conflict and violence. De Vita’s research focuses instead on international histories of reconciliation and repair. But what does it mean, in international politics, to repair for past harm? The chronological focus of her work spans the history of the 20th century, and her expertise combines a theoretical international relations approach with historical and digital humanities methods.

She wrote her dissertation on the subject of German-Israeli reconciliation in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Her book ‘Israelpolitik: German-Israeli Relations 1949-1969’, was received with praise from reviewers.

At Utrecht University, she is leading the Wording Repair project, an NWO-funded effort to digitize, transcribe, and analyze recently unearthed historical sources relative to the history of reparations after the Second World War and the Holocaust. This research is embedded in her Holocaust Diplomacy: The Global Politics of Memory and Forgetting project, which is supported by the Alfred Landecker Foundation Lecturer Programme(2021-2026). Her work involves academics, museum and research institution staff, and policy-makers, in the attempt to map how a global memory of collective atrocities, and forms of reparation and atonement, emerge and change over time.

De Vita is a past recipient of the prestigious Teacher Talent Award of the UU for "creating a learning environment where debate and exchange are central".