Dr Bridget Harris

Lecturer, Faculty of Law

PhD in Criminology (Monash University)

Bridget is an interdisciplinary early career researcher and has published and presented her work in the areas of:

• intimate partner / domestic / family and sexual violence
• technology-facilitated violence, advocacy and justice administration in the context of intimate partner, domestic, family and sexual violence
• access to justice (including in regional, rural and remote areas, and postcode justice)
• legal advocacy

She has been invited to advise police and legal bodies on technology-facilitated abuse, stalking and harm and, gender-based violence in regional, rural and remote communities (incidents and experiences; informal and formal responses; technology-facilitated violence and advocacy in non-urban places). Her work in these fields was heavily cited in and used to inform recommendations made by the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence. Bridget’s research on technology-facilitated violence has also been used in the formulation of national and international guides, reports and research, including by the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament, Office of Science and Technology. Her work on technology-facilitated violence, gender-based violence, access to justice and rural criminology has informed other government and non-government inquiries as well as policy and practice reforms and recommendations, including in the recent review – The Justice Project – undertaken by the Law Council of Australia (focused on the state of access to justice in the nation).

Nominations and Awards: 

Bridget competed her PhD thesis (Just Spaces? Community Legal Centres as Places of Law) at Monash University and was the School of Social Sciences candidate nominated for the Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for Excellence in a PhD thesis. She received the Bruce Mansfield Award for Outstanding Research in her Honours year, undertaken at Macquarie University. In 2016 she received a scholarship to attend the competitive Australian Research Council Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellowship Mentoring Scheme. As an educator, she has also received staff and student nominated teaching awards. In 2017 she received the Vice Chancellor’s Performance Award for Service Excellence. In 2019 she won the Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology New Scholar Prize.

Funded Research (Grants):

From 2016-2020 she was awarded three esteemed Australian Institute of Criminology ‘Criminology Research Council’ grants:

• Spaceless Violence and Advocacy: Technology-facilitated Abuse, Stalking and Service Provision in Australia (lead, with Dr Delanie Woodlock, Women’s Legal Service NSW and Professor Harry Blagg)
• Reducing Crime and Incarceration Rates in Aboriginal Communities: The Impact of the ‘Yes I Can’ Adult Literacy Campaign (led by Dr Jenny Wise with Associate Professor Bob Boughton, Adjunct Professor Jack Beetson and Dr Nickson)
• Police Body-worn Camera Technology in Response to Domestic and Family Violence: A National Study of Victim-Survivor Perspectives and Experiences (led by Dr Mary Iliadis, with Dr Danielle Tyson, Associate Professor Asher Flynn and Dr Zarina Vakhitova).

In 2018, with Dr Delanie Woodlock and ASSA fellows Professor Kerry Carrington and Hon. Marcia Neave, she won an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia grant to host a workshop on Technology and Domestic Violence: Experiences, Perpetration and Responses, with leading national academics, advocates and practitioners. Other (Australian Communications Consumer Action Network) funded research includes Domestic Violence and Communication Technology: Victim Experiences of Intrusion, Surveillance, and Identity Theft; Associate Professor Molly Dragiewicz, Dr Bridget Harris, Dr Michael Salter, Dr Delanie Woodlock, Women’s Legal Service Queensland and Women’s Legal Service New South Wales (2018-2019).

She has also completed projects on Virtual Reality and Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence  with Dr Claire Ferguson (QUT funded) and Body Worn Cameras: Examining the Merits of Body Worn Camera Technologies in Domestic and Family Violence Cases led by Dr Mary Iliadis, with Dr Danielle Tyson, Associate Professor Asher Flynn and Dr Zarina Vakhitova (funded by Deakin University).

In 2019 she was awarded an Australian Research Council DECRA (Discovery Early Career Research Award, 2020-2023) to complete a project on State responses to technology-facilitated domestic violence.  

In 2020 she was part of a Melbourne University led-team (Dr Dana McKay, Renee Fiolet, Dr Charlynn Miller, Cynthia Brown, Kobe Leins, Dr Nwakego Isika) awarded a Melbourne Social Equity Institute Grant: Why do they do that? An investigation into the perpetrator perspective of technology-facilitated abuse (external team: Dr Delanie Woodlock, Jasmine Purches, Vibol Hy, Dr Bridget Harris). She also leads a 2020-2021 eSafety Commissioner funded grant (with Dr Delanie Woodlock, WESNET and WWILD) that explores tech-abuse experiences of women with cognitive or intellectual disability

For links / to request access to her work, see the publications tab / e-Prints. Her forthcoming text, edited with Dr Delanie Woodlock – Domestic Violence and Technology: Experiences, Perpetration and Responses – features contributions from leading international advocates, practitioners and academics, and will be published by Routledge in 2021.

Bridget is also:

• a Chief Investigator in the Digital Media Research Centre, QUT,
• a Research Associate with the Research Centre on Violence at West Virginia University,
• an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of New England,
• a member of the Executive Committee of the Centre of Rural Criminology
• Treasurer of the International Study for the Society of Rural Criminology
• a member of the QUT Ally Network
• on the Editorial Advisory Board of Bristol University Press’s Research in Rural Crime series.

Projects (Chief investigator)

• Building State responses to technology-facilitated domestic violence

Projects

• Identifying and responding to online abuse and harassment through machine learning models

Additional information