The people behind Gender + Tech:

Leonie Tanczer
Associate Professor

Leonie Tanczer is an Associate Professor in International Security and Emerging Technologies at UCL’s Department of Computer Science and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) grant holder. She is part of UCL's Information Security Research Group and initiated and heads the Gender and Tech research efforts at UCL. Her research focuses on questions related to Internet security, and she is specifically interested in the intersection of technology, security, and gender.

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Nikolaos Koukopoulos
Research Fellow

Nikolaos Koukopoulos is a Research Fellow within the Gender and Tech team at UCL Computer Science. He works on the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) research project '“Revolutionising Online Safety: Tackling Technology-Facilitated Abuse to Protect Victims and Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence”. He is involved in research that seeks to conceptualise tech abuse within intimate partner violence contexts and understand potential perpetration pathways through interviews and focus groups with offenders.

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Madeleine Janickyj
Research Fellow

Madeleine Janickyj is a Research Fellow in Natural Language Processing (NLP) for the Violence, Health and Society (VISION) Consortium. Her work involves leveraging computational social science techniques such as text classification and sentiment analysis to identify and quantify instances of tech abuse. She analyses domestic abuse datasets, including case records by the charity Refuge and injunction files offered by the National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV).

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Jennifer Reed
Policy Advisor

Jen Reed is the Head of UCL’s Policy Impact Unit and Policy Advisor to the Gender and Tech team. She oversees a broad portfolio spanning science, technology, and engineering research but specialises in tech abuse. Jen supports the Lab in developing actionable policy recommendations, strengthening collaborations with national and international policymakers, and leading strategic engagement activities. She also designs innovative approaches to influence and shape policy on gender and technology effectively.

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Kyle Beadle
PhD Candidate

Kyle Beadle is a PhD Candidate in UCL’s Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cybersecurity, supervised by Dr Marie Vasek, Dr Leonie Tanczer, and Dr Mark Warner. His research focuses on privacy, security, and human-computer interaction. He works specifically on understanding the social dynamics of coercive influence on online social platforms and developing tools to enable marginalised/vulnerable populations such as LGBTQIA+ communities to protect themselves from such privacy-violating behaviours.

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Akhil Polamarasetty
PhD Candidate

Akhil Polamarasetty is a PhD Candidate at UCL’s Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cybersecurity, supervised by Dr Kevin Chetty and Dr Leonie Tanczer. His research leverages qualitative and system-building methods to investigate and mitigate tech abuse in Internet-connected ecosystems like smart homes. He aims to develop software and hardware-based solutions that help make connected devices inherently safer by enabling people to discover such abuse and take action accordingly.

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Adrianne Thompson
PhD Candidate

Adrianne Thompson is a PhD Candidate at Queens University Belfast (QUB), supervised by Dr Domhnall Carlin, Dr Kieran McLaughlin, and Dr Leonie Tanczer. She investigates the exploitation of attack vectors and vulnerabilities present in Internet of Things (IoT) systems in intimate partner violence contexts. Her research informs both policy as well as technical solutions to protect victims and survivors while advocating for secure, user-centric design in smart technologies.

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Anjuli Kaul
PhD Candidate

Anjuli Kaul is a PhD Candidate funded by an EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) studentship, supervised by Dr Leonie Tanczer and Dr Ine Steenmans. Collaborating closely with the Office of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, her research focuses on enhancing the criminal justice response to tech abuse. She aims to develop policies and improve legislation that will better address the needs of victims and survivors, including their mental health.

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Maya Ashkenazi
Research Assistant

Maya is a Research Assistant in Natural Language Processing (NLP) at the Gender and Tech Lab at UCL. Her current research, in partnership with and funded by Google, focuses on developing machine learning models to detect online help-seeking behaviour from at-risk users. She recently completed her Master’s dissertation, supervised by Dr Leonie Tanczer and Dr Maria Perez Ortiz, which assessed a range of NLP modelling techniques to detect and classify psychological abuse on Reddit data.

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Isabelle Gressel
Administrator

Isabelle Gressel is the Administrator for the Gender and Tech Research Lab at UCL. Working part-time, she plays a vital role in supporting the team by managing resources, coordinating events, and producing the group’s monthly newsletter. With extensive experience in administrative support and project management, Isabelle ensures the smooth running of day-to-day operations. She fosters a collaborative, productive environment that enables innovative and impactful research within the group.

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Rupen Kalsi
Policy Advisor

Rupen Kalsi is Policy Advisor to the Gender and Tech team, and part of UCL’s Policy Impact Unit where she covers policy on AI, quantum technology and neuromorphic computing. Rupen supports the Lab in policy engagement activities, bringing in her previous experience as a civil servant. She is passionate about preventing gender-based violence across different cultural contexts.

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