About
Dominic Lees is Associate Professor in Filmmaking at the University of Reading, UK, and convenor of the Synthetic Media Research Network. His research into deepfakes began in 2019/20, with the ‘Virtual Maggie’ project that experimented with deepfakes to resurrect Margaret Thatcher for a new period film drama. He is interested in developing positive applications of deepfakes and synthetic media, including in education. Dominic has written on deepfakes for academic journals, the online current affairs journal, The Conversation and the BFI magazine, Sight and Sound. In 2021, he was co-editor of a special issue on deepfakes for the journal, Convergence. Dominic’s earlier career was in television and film production, working in current affairs and television documentaries; he has directed over 40 episodes of TV drama and the feature film, Outlanders (2008).