About Us - The Image-Based Abuse Project

OUR VISION

We’re a small team of interdisciplinary feminist researchers from the Social and Global Studies Centre at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Our vision is to translate research into practical outcomes and benefits, including more robust and effective legal, policy, educational and corporate responses to image-based abuse. Our feminist ethics of care approach is victim-survivor-centric, trauma-aware and intersectionality-focused.

The project is funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship. Led by Professor Nicola Henry, the project investigates the effectiveness of digital tools and interventions to detect, prevent and respond to image-based abuse. The project involves: a digital ethnography of online websites where intimate images are being shared without consent; victim and stakeholder interviews; online surveys; and an AI chatbot called Una.

PROJECT TEAM

Professor Nicola Henry

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Nicola is Professor and Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow in the Social and Global Studies Centre at RMIT University (Melbourne Australia). Nicola is a socio-legal scholar with over two decades of research experience in the sexual violence field. Her research investigates the prevalence, nature and impacts of sexual violence, including legal and prevention responses in Australian and international contexts. Her research on technology-facilitated abuse and image-based abuse has had a significant impact on law, policy and educational reform, including legislative change in multiple Australian jurisdictions.

Nicola is a member of the Office of the eSafety Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Committee. She has provided expert advice to tech companies, such as Facebook and Tik Tok, in relation to their policies on image-based abuse and sexual violence.

Nicola has published widely in this area and has been interviewed many times for television, radio, print and online media.

Dr Alice Witt

RESEARCH FELLOW

Alice is a Research Fellow in the Social and Global Studies Centre at RMIT University. Her research investigates the exercise of governing power in the digital age, focusing on the intersections of regulation, technology, and gender. Alice’s doctoral thesis fused legal theory with innovative digital research methods to empirically evaluate the moderation of images depicting women’s bodies on Instagram against the Anglo-American ideal of the rule of law. In addition to contributions to edited volumes, her work has appeared in journals such as the UNSW Law Journal, Feminist Media Studies, and Communication Research and Practice.

Alice’s research expertise includes content moderation on Instagram, the governance of and by online platforms, the regulation of women’s bodies, and digitising law.

Dr Stef Vasil

RESEARCH FELLOW

Stef is a Research Fellow at the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Her research examines how women with insecure migration status experience and seek help for family violence in Australia.

Courtney Vowles

RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Courtney has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Media and Communications and is currently completing a PhD at the University of Melbourne. Her research addresses best practice in educating young people about digitally mediated sexualities, nude-sharing, and image-based sexual abuse, with the view to reduce harm, foster sexual ethics, and promote help-seeking behaviours for victim-survivors. Courtney has extensive work experience in communications and education regarding online safety, and in 2018 she co-authored a book addressing young people, technology, and the internet.

Gemma Beard

PhD CANDIDATE

Gemma is the recipient of the PhD scholarship under the Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship. Her PhD thesis focuses on police and justice stakeholder responses to image-based sexual assault and image-based harms. Gemma is also a sessional marker for Criminology and Justice studies in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University.