Research

I did my master (2007) and my licentiate (2013) on Information Security at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. I was not that into the technical stuff like cryptography, firewalls, virus protection etc. I was (and still am) more interested in how people appreciate and enact information security in their lives. The topic for my master was illegal file sharing on P2P networks, and people’s perceptions concerning the strategies employed by the music and movie industry to stop it. For my licentiate I studied the emergency communications between the rescue departments, the paramedics and the police, and tried to figure out how it could be improved.

For my PhD at Oulu University in Finland, I combined the interest of Interact research group in studying children’s ICT use with my background in information security, and my interest in researching all things Internet. I defended my PhD thesis titled Malice in Wonderland: Children, Online safety and the Wonderful World of Web 2.0 in December 2017.

As a postdoc, I continue to work on children’s online safety as much as I can. However, I have also gravitated towards studying digital fabrication, and empowerment through technology design and making. Related to this, I have also completed FabAcademy diploma in 2018, which awarded for successful completion of 20 certificates on digital fabrication. During fabAcademy students learn to envision, prototype and document ideas through hands-on work with digital fabrication tools. They plan and execute a new project each week, taking a variety of code formats and turning them into physical objects

Research interests

  • Qualitative research and participatory design
  • Human-Computer Interaction & Child-Computer Interaction
  • Digital fabrication / Maker movement: Empowerment through 21st century skills
  • Social media and web 2.0
    • Social networks, instant messaging, virtual worlds (gaming and social) – TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Youtube, SecondLife, WoW etc.
    • Collaborative content creation and curation (for example spotify)
    • Digital literacy, fake news, the line between free speech and hate speech – Facebook Jail
    • Unsafe interactions in dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, OKCupid
  • Online safety and Information security
    • Threats related to: Content (e.g. spam, violence), Contact (e.g, bullying, grooming), Conduct (e.g. illegal file sharing, bullying others), or Computers (e.g. malware, phishing)
    • Social mediation by parents, teachers
    • Industry mediation (e.g. content screening, privacy policies)
    • Policies and educational efforts (e.g. KiVa koulu, Better internet for Children)
    • Online safety technologies (e.g. parental control apps)