Before the PhD: 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.
During the PhD: 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 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.
After the PhD: As a postdoc, I’ve continued to work with online safety with awesome peeps. I am still interested in all things internet (helloo fake news, dating apps, social media challenges and independent vaccine research). I have also gravitated towards participatory design, digital fabrication, and empowerment through technology design and making in different projects. To be better at all that stuff, I did FabAcademy in 2018, and got awarded a nice diploma for the completion of 20 certificates on digital fabrication. Lately, I’ve gotten this idea in my head that I want to study the possibilities of digital fabrication as a form of protest or activism. Because FabLabs are cool, and everyone has the man they want to fight. It is still brewing.
