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

• Children and teenagers as IT/Internet users
• Qualitative research
• Human-Computer Interaction & Child-Computer Interaction
• Digital fabrication / Maker movement
• Social media and web 2.0
  • Social networks, instant messaging, content creation, virtual worlds (gaming and social)
  • Facebook, ask.fm, WhatsApp, Instagram, Youtube, SecondLife, WoW etc.
• Online safety and Information security
  • Threats to online safety
    • Content threats (e.g. spam, violence),
    • Contact threats (e.g, bullying, grooming),
    • Conduct threats (e.g. illegal file sharing)
    • Computer threats (e.g. malware, phishing)
  • Online safety mediation
    • Industry mediation (e.g. content screening, privacy policies),
    • Technology (e.g. parental controls, adblockers),
    • Policies and educational efforts (e.g. KiVa koulu, Better internet for Children)
    • Social mediation by parents, teacher