About me:

Dr Kirsten Wahlstrom is a research and teaching academic and a Certified Professional registered with the Australian Computer Society. While Kirsten acknowledges privileges that flow from her education, being cis, white, and from being an Australian citizen, as a child she experienced a low-SES lifestyle and as a woman in IT, she is marginalised and sometimes finds her voice unheard. She exercises empathy to the best of her ability, while inviting others to become more ethical in their decision-making and in their conduct.

Kirsten's research aims to perpetuate our safety and rights through revealing the effects of emerging technologies on social constructs and where necessary, identifying, validating and applying safeguards. She enjoys working as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society and she has been a co-investigator on three successful grants funding doctoral candidates. The first funded research into personalisation and search, the second funds research on social manipulation, and the third funds research on fake news in the wider context of public discourse.

Kirsten's research commitments are echoed in her dedication to service. In addition to her work at UniSA, she serves the professional and research communities through being the Vice-Chair of the Australian Computer Society's Ethics Committee and a member of its Profession Advisory Board, and she recently agreed to be the Associate Editor of the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. She has been a Section Editor for the Australasian Journal of Information Systems and she chaired the organising committee of the 2020 conference of the Australasian Institute of Computer Ethics.

Kirsten’s doctoral research was conducted at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University in Leicester, under the supervision of Dr Ben Fairweather, Assoc Prof Helen Ashman, Dr Sara Wilford, Prof Kathleen Richardson, and Mr Howell Istance. In this research, Kirsten developed and applied a novel method informed by critical theory to investigate the ways in which brain-computer interfaces disrupt privacy. The novel method was triangulated with Nissenbaum's contextual integrity approach to identifying privacy disruptions. The doctoral research thus produced a knowledge contribution and a methodological contribution. These were reported in five publications, some of which are listed in the Research Outputs section of this web page.

Kirsten holds five awards for outstanding teaching practice, among them a national award for providing experiential learning to transnational teams of students. Her teaching blends constructivist and experiential pedagogies to initiate and support meaningful transformations. She invites students to undertake purposive active learning tasks and critical reflections; these intellectual activities support the completion of cognitively demanding, multifaceted assessment tasks. Kirsten’s teaching is also characterised by collaborations in which her professional colleagues play an important role, giving talks, providing and supervising projects, coaching students, providing placements, and more.

Throughout her teaching, Kirsten has received positive feedback from students. A recent anonymous student commented, "An amazing educator - Kirsten shines in her role as DTDI lecturer and workshop presenter. She knows the material very well and has a true passion for the concepts and the potential of what this course can deliver. She is enthusiastic and tries to pass that on to her students. Thanks Kirsten." Another commented, "Absolutely fantastic instructor. Cannot fathom the time she spends on the course and making it interesting, exciting and beneficial to her students. Completely respectful and understanding of all kinds of needs. Knew the course off the back of her hand and kept the class in tow. By far the best instructor I have had so far."

Kirsten’s commitment and motivation emerge from her feminist principles which motivate respect for others, inclusivity, intellectual engagement, and social responsibility. In her free time, she works on the house her great-grandfather built and she flourishes in a strong and vibrant social network.