Lorna Richardson

Lorna-Jane Richardson is Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Heritage in the School of Art, Media & American Studies. Her research and teaching are focused on digital media, cultural heritage, and digital research ethics and methods, especially those using social media. 

Prior to returning to HE as a mature student and undertaking her PhD, Lorna worked in the archaeological sector in a number of roles. This included time as a field archaeologist and community archaeologist. She has worked for a number of organisations including the Thames Discovery Programme, Wessex Archaeology, MOLA, L-P Archaeology and the Council for British Archaeology. Building on her background in community archaeology, she established the Waveney Valley Community Archaeology Group in Norfolk in 2013. She is a Trustee of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeology Society, and the Bungay Museum Trust, and is currently the Curator of Bungay Museum in the Waveney Valley.

The Invisible Women – Developing a Feminist Approach to Film Archive Metadata and Cataloguing

Lorna is Co-I on this UK-Ireland Digital Humanities project, led by UEA and the Irish Film Institute. The project intends to explore how film archives can take practical action to update, enhance and improve catalogue metadata via feminist research methodologies. By using this approach, it will reveal the hidden heritage related to women's creativity.

The Endo Project

Lorna was Co-I on 'The Endo Project', a three year research project funded by the Stiftelsen Marcus och Amalia Wallenbergs Minnesfond, with the University of Umeå, Sweden. This project aimed to understand how people suffering from endometriosis use the internet and social media to cope with their condition. This work relates to a broader research interest in how embodied health movements are using the affordances of digital media to enable user-driven forms of knowledge gathering, and knowledge production, as well as peer-support practices. 

Lorna has a PhD (2014), funded by the AHRC, from the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, titled 'Public Archaeology in a Digital Age'. She also has an MA in Public Archaeology and a BA in Medieval Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL.

Prior to joining the UEA in 2018, Lorna worked as an AHRC Creative Economy Research Fellow at the University of York, as a postdoctoral researcher in the Digital Social Studies Unit, Department of Sociology at the University of Umea, Sweden, and as an AHRC funded Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge Museums.

Lorna's current research focuses public engagement and community participation in cultural heritage, especially with and through digital media.

She is interested in how the use of digital technologies might support creativity, discussion and the repurposing of expert knowledge in communities.

She researches how social media can support, exclude and contain public discourse, alternative ideas and lived experience. She works predominantly with data drawn from public digital discussions and online communities, most recently working with data about film makers, archaeological sites, ancient DNA and material culture, as well as data on the lived experience of people with endometriosis.

Lorna is currently working on a project centred on Stonehenge. This examines public perceptions of the site and it's importance to non-experts, using data drawn from online communities. You can access a comic about her research on Stonehenge here.

Lorna would welcome applications for postgraduate supervision on any aspect of digital media research, including public archives, archaeology, cultural heritage, or digital humanities related research.

Undergraduate Teaching:

Digital Media: Concepts, Technologies & Cultures

Digital Mediascapes 

Digital Media: Theory & Practice

Postgraduate Teaching:

Critical Perspectives in Museums & Heritage

Cultural Heritage & Archiving in a Digital Age 

Lorna is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Post-Medieval Archaeology. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a member of the Association of Internet Researchers. Lorna was an Ethics Officer for the Computer Applications in Archaeology International from 2017-2022.

Lorna's field of expertise is focused on issues of public engagement with the GLAM sector and archaeology, as well as critical approaches to digital media and heritage.