Researcher

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Trust & Safety Practitioner

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Online Safety

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Ethics of Technology

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Media & Society

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Digital Governance

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Tech Policy

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Researcher ~ Trust & Safety Practitioner ~ Online Safety ~ Ethics of Technology ~ Media & Society ~ Digital Governance ~ Tech Policy ~

A woman with long dark hair wearing a beige turtleneck sweater, sitting among orange and yellow tulips with a plain white background.

Exploring how technology, regulation, and society affect each other and what that means for
trust and democracy.

Originally from Ireland and now based in the Netherlands, I’m a researcher focused on transparency, accountability, and the governance of digital technologies. My work explores how regulation, policy, media and design decisions shape what becomes visible, trusted, and influential in public life.

I’ve worked across industry, policy, and research (including roles at Bytedance/TikTok and the Global Disinformation Index), and have collaborated with civil society and regulators on issues of online safety, AI governance, and research access.

My current work examines transparency infrastructures, EU AI regulation, and how evolving governance frameworks shape the balance between openness, accountability, and control in digital systems.

A woman and a man seated at a table during a formal meeting. The woman speaks and has dark shoulder-length hair, while the man has short brown hair, glasses, and is focused on something in front of him. Behind them there is a sign with the word 'TÁ' on it, and a white box on the wall.
A smiling woman in a formal dress holding a framed certificate at a banquet or awards ceremony, with a group of seated guests in the background.

My Research Focus

  • 1. Transparency & Public Trust

    As digital systems mediate ever more of public life, “transparency” has become a central ideal of accountability, but it’s also a contested one.

    What, exactly, does “transparency” mean in digital contexts? How do AI disclosure labels communicate trustworthiness to the public? And can transparency mechanisms serve effective democratic oversight rather than procedural compliance?
    A street pole with various stickers and signs, including a prominent sign that reads 'BIG DATA IS WATCHING YOU,' in black and white, with blurred city lights in the background.

  • 2. Media, Technology & Epistemic Authority

    Information production and circulation has become increasingly automated and de-localised. As a result, our sources of epistemic authority (that is, who we trust and empower to tell us what is true) have also shifted.

    Key questions I seek to explore are:
    - How do media technologies and algorithmic systems shape what we see, and critically, what we count as credible knowledge?
    - How does the media’s framing affect public understanding and democratic discourse?

    Smartphone displaying CNN news headline about the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong, with an image of medical personnel in protective gear, placed on a wooden surface.

  • 3. Digital Regulation & Governance

    Regulation has become one of the primary tools through which societies try to hold technology to account. Yet laws like the EU’s Digital Services Act and the AI Act often raise questions of their own.

    How can we meaningfully assess the effectiveness of such regulatory frameworks? What occurs in the translation between legislative ambition, platform implementation, and regulatory enforcement? And how can we ensure meaningful accountability rather than symbolic or technical compliance?

    Multiple European Union flags flying in front of a modern glass building.

Selected Research

The Limits of Labelling: Transparency and Trust in Synthetic Media

As generative AI continues to transform how information is created and circulated, policymakers and platforms are increasingly turning to provenance and disclosure tools (such as watermarking or C2PA’s Content Credentials) to indicate when content has been AI-generated or AI-edited. This ongoing project examines the potential limits of such labelling regimes and interrogates whether the current transparency mechanisms foster meaningful public understanding or risk becoming procedural.

Read more: Limits of Labelling Research Proposal

A comparative chart showing social media platforms LinkedIn, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube with their respective content labels and sources. LinkedIn has a 'CR Label' with a sample post, Meta has an 'AI Info Label' with a Facebook profile and cat photo, TikTok features a 'Creator AI-Generated Content' label with two phone screens displaying a woman and a graphic, and YouTube shows a 'How this content was made' label with a video description. Sources are linked below each platform.

Address to the Oireachtas (Irish Government): Migration and Polarising Narratives

May 2019

Invited to speak before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Equality on the topic of migration, I drew on my post-graduate research into media framing and securitisation to reflect on how harmful, polarised narratives influence public attitudes, policy, and social cohesion regarding migration.

Read more: Opening Statement on Migration and Securitisation  

The Politics of Race and Memory in European Society

Published in EuropeNow Journal (December 2020)

This feature brings together sociologists Jean Beaman, Crystal Fleming, and political scientist Jennifer Fredette to examine how race, identity, and memory are negotiated across European societies. The back-and-forth discussion explores how narratives of belonging and exclusion are constructed in public discourse, and how the politics of remembrance and colonial pasts shapes contemporary democratic life.

Read more: The Politics of Race and Memory in European Society

The Challenge of Populism for Representative Democracy

Research Essay (2016)

An early piece that anticipated many of the democratic challenges visible today, I analyse how populist movements contest the norms and institutions of representative democracy. The essay explores how appeals to ‘‘Us-vs-Them’’ narratives and strategic instrumentalisation of grievances reshape expectations of political legitimacy, participation, and truth. These are all dynamics that foreshadow the information, trust and democratic crises now unfolding in the 2020s.

Read more: The Challenge of Populism for Representative Democracy