Vanessa Barker is Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University, Editor in Chief of Punishment & Society, Visiting Professor of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo, Advisor to Border Criminologies at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on questions of democracy and border control, welfare states and immigration, the criminalization and penalization of migrants, and the role of civil society in social change. She teaches courses on qualitative research methods, globalization, complex inequalities and introduction to sociology.

Her latest book Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order: Walling the Welfare State examines the border closing in Sweden during the height of the refugee crisis and the rise of penal nationalism in response to mass mobility. She is the author of a number of academic articles, including pieces on Nordic Exceptionalism, the American crime decline, border control, civic repair, and mass imprisonment, including her first book The Politics of Imprisonment. She has been a visiting academic at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford and a visiting fellow at the Law & Public Affairs Program (LAPA) at Princeton University. Her work has received grants and awards from Riksbanken, the National Science Foundation and the American Scandinavian Foundation. She served on the Board of Trustees for the Law & Society Association, as Co-editor for the Howard Journal of Crime & Justice, as book review editor for Punishment & Society, and Associate Editor of Theoretical Criminology. She completed her doctoral degree at New York University and worked at Florida State University before moving to Sweden.

Dr. John Morrison is an Associate Professor of Criminology in Maynooth University and an expert on violent dissident Irish republicanism, organisational fragmentation and broader issues relating to the psychology of terrorist involvement. He is an associate editor of Perspectives on Terrorism and Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. In 2016, alongside Dr. Paul Gill of University College London, he co-edited a special issue of Terrorism and Political Violence that looked at one hundred years of Irish Republican paramilitary activity from 1916 to 2016. In 2018 he co-edited a book with James Windle, Aaron Winter and Andrew Silke on historical perspectives on organised crime and terrorism. Dr. Morrison’s current research interests relate to the role of trust in terrorist decision-making, violent dissident Irish republicanism, and expert novice differences in terrorist activity.

Dr Orla Lynch is the Dean of Doctoral Studies at UCC. Orla’s academic appointment is as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology. She is the Programme Director of the PhD for Higher Education Professionals and the Ma in Trauma Studies. Until 2015 she was Director of Teaching and a Lecturer in Terrorism Studies at CSTPV at the University of St Andrews. Orla’s background is in International Security Studies and Applied Psychology; her primary training is as a social psychologist. She studied at both the University of St Andrews (MLitt) and University College Cork (Phd). Orla is a fellow with Hedayah, Abu Dhabi and a Board member of RAN, Europe. She is also a RESOLVE Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, an Anniversary Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence and an Academic Advisor for WAVE Trauma Centre Belfast. Orla’s current research focuses on victimisation and political violence in relation to the direct victims of violence, but also the broader psycho-social impact of victimisation and the perpetrator-victim complex.   Orla has also examined the notion of suspect communities in relation to the impact of counter terrorism measures on Muslim youth communities.  Orla’s research interests lie in individual and group desistance from political violence, including issues related to deradicalisation, the role of grand narratives in justifying involvement in violence and psychosocial understandings of the transitions from violence to peace. Her recent books include The Disappeared with Sandra Peake, Applying Psychology and The Case of Terrorism and Political Violence with Carmel Joyce.

Dr Joseph Patrick McAulay is a research fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies where he was recently awarded a 3-year competitive Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. His current project “Dangerous Spectacles” utilises an innovate multi-methods strategy to investigate the relationship between conspiracy theories, social media, and crime in the United Kingdom. He is currently a co-convenor of the ConspirOX conspiracy theory discussion group, an inter-disciplinary research group that works to share and disseminate innovative research on the intersection of conspiracy theories, radicalisation, and contemporary culture. He also co-convenes the Alternative Political and Legal theory discussion group at the Oxford University Faculty of Law which uses attempts to understand how unconventional theoretical perspectives can help us understand the crises and challenges impacting the world today. Joseph maintains research interests in narrative criminology, conspiracy theory studies, affect and emotion studies, and victimology. His research has been published in journals such as the International Review of Victimology, Deviant Behaviour, and the St Anthony’s International Review.

Joseph holds a D.Phil. and M.Sc. from the Centre for Criminology in Oxford, and an LLB from the University of Edinburgh where he received the McClintock Prize in Criminology.

Ciarán O’Connor is a Senior Analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an NGO that researches disinformation, extremism and hate online. ISD uses a mixture of data analysis, ethnographic monitoring and open source methodologies in their research. Previously, Ciarán worked as a journalist with Storyful, before he joined ISD. He now focuses on the intersection of technology and extremism, particularly that of the far right, and he has co-authored numerous reports examining these topics, including 2023’s Uisce Faoi Thalamh, an in-depth investigation into the online mis- and disinformation ecosystem in Ireland. He is also the co-host of podcasts Enough About AI and The Forgotten, a RTÉ Radio 1 series examining the legacy of the 1974 Dublin Monaghan bombings.

Dr Darragh McCashin is an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at DCU, and is Chair of The Observatory on Cyberbullying, Cyberhate & Online Harassment in the Anti-Bullying Centre (ABC). Darragh is broadly interested in digital youth mental health, online harms  and clinical/forensic applications of technology. Darragh is also a member of the Criminal justice Open Research Dialogue (CORD) Partnership.

Previously, Darragh was a Marie Curie Fellow/PhD student at University College Dublin (UCD), examining technology-enabled youth mental health within the EU H2020-funded TEAM-ITN project, specifically the role of technology-assisted cognitive behavioural therapy for children using mixed methodologies. A second strand to Darragh’s research is that of forensic/criminal psychology. With an MSc in Applied Forensic Psychology (University of York), Darragh has previously worked as an Associate Lecturer and Research Assistant in the Online-Protect research group at the University of Lincoln case formulation tools for those with convictions for internet sexual offences.

Darragh also sits on two working groups for COST Actions: the Researcher Mental Health Observatory (CA19117), and the Digital Mental Health for Young People (CA23153).

Elzbieta Drazkiewicz is a graduate of Cambridge Anthropology. At the Ethnology Department of Lund University, Sweden, she is leading the ERC project CONSPIRATIONS dedicated to the studies of conflicts over conspiracy theories in Europe, as well as NORDREN project examining the preparedness of the Nordic societies to disinformation threats. She specializes in organisational and political anthropology. While her current focus is on conflicts over truth and actors spreading and countering conspiracy theories, her research also includes studies of global political economy. She is an author of Institutionalised Dreams: The Art of Managing Foreign Aid. 

Seamus Taylor is a former Head of Department of Applied Social Studies in Maynooth University. His research interests include: analysis of hate crime policy and practice; issues of equality and diversity in the criminal justice system; analysis of  policy approaches to addressing equality in the public sector; and analysis of the social policy making process.

Prior to joining Maynooth University in 2009, Seamus worked as Director of Equality and Diversity at the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales where he lead on hate crime policy, and prior to that he worked as Director of Strategy at the Commission for Racial Equality in Britain where he led on the national response to the  Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. His publications are in the areas of equality and diversity policy making and practice, critical analysis of hate crime policy and practice, racist crime and race equality policy and practice in the criminal justice system. His book with Dr Amanda Haynes and Jennifer Schweppe (UL), Haynes, Schweppe and Taylor, Critical Perspectives on Hate Crime: An Irish Perspective, London: Palgrave Macmillan was published in 2017. Seamus’ latest book, Hate Crime Policy and Disability: from vulnerability to ableism was published by Bristol University Press in 2022.

Keith is a Penal Policy Advocate in the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. He is primarily focused on research and advocacy in the policy area of penal minimalism. He holds Master’s degrees in Social Science (Rights and Social Policy) from Maynooth University, and in Social Science Research from Queen’s University, Belfast. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the KU Leuven Institute of Criminology, Belgium. Keith’s professional background is in the Irish non-profit sector where he has undertaken research on child and family policy, and penal policy. In his recent writing, he has discussed the ways in which solidarity can be an antidote for our troubled times.