Lydia Walker is a historian of 20^th century global decolonization. She has broad interests in the international history of South Asia, Southern Africa, military intervention, and insurgent resistance. She is Assistant Professor and the Seth Andre Myers Chair in Global Military History at The Ohio State University, where she is also a Provost's Early Career Scholar, as well as a faculty Research Associate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, where she is Director of the Non-State Archive.

She is the author of States-in-Waiting: A Counternarrative of Global Decolonization (Cambridge University Press, 2024), an interconnected history of nationalist insurgent movements and their transnational advocacy networks during postwar global decolonization which received the 2025 Busuttil Prize and Medal from the Royal Asiatic Society. Her scholarship has also appeared in the American Historical Review, Past & Present, and elsewhere. Her current research focuses on the history of international intervention during and after the Second World War through the evolving role of the United Nations.

She holds a PhD and AM in History from Harvard University as well as a BA in History from Columbia University’s School of General Studies. Prior to arriving at Ohio State, she held research positions at Dartmouth College (US), the Institute of Historical Research (UK), the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (India), Leiden University (The Netherlands). In 2025, she has been a Visiting Fellow at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge (UK).