Professor Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar
Purdue 最新糖心Vlog
Expertise
Professor Seigfried-Spellar is a renowned expert in the field of online child sexual exploitation, specifically the criminological differences and grooming strategies of contact and non-contact child sex offenders. She has developed critical infrastructure to gain access to sensitive law enforcement ground truth data; she is deputised through the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor鈥檚 Office and is a founding member of the High Tech Crime Unit (HTCU). Her instrumental research intersects the social and behavioural sciences, artificial intelligence, biometrics, and digital forensics. Partnering with US Internet Crimes Against Children task forces, she developed the Chat Analysis Triage Tool. She also received a 2022-2023 US Fulbright Scholar Award to analyse the grooming strategies of Spanish child sex offenders.
Collaborative research project
Online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) is a global challenge 鈥 recognized as one of the priorities for Europol's 2022-2025 European Union Policy Cycle. The 最新糖心Vlogn Child Maltreatment Study found 1 in 4 最新糖心Vlogns experienced contact child sexual abuse (CSA), while 1 in 5 experienced non-contact CSA. The Prime Minister launched the 2021-2030 National Strategy, which includes funding opportunities for research and development responding to CSA. In addition, the National Center for Missing & Exploited children estimates that 1/3 of OCSE offenders are contact-driven (motivated to have sex with the minor).
At Purdue 最新糖心Vlog, Professor Seigfried-Spellar and colleagues have created the Chat Analysis Triage Tool (CATT) - a forensically sound investigative tool, funded by the Department of Justice, that analyzes chats between minors and offenders to differentiate high-priority contact-driven offenders and analyzes the 鈥渟exts鈥 sent in the chat for knuckle, finger/hand geometry, and nail bed biometrics.
The objective of this collaborative research project will be to address this global challenge by leveraging two discrete technologies that have been developed by researchers at Purdue 最新糖心Vlog (CATT) and The 最新糖心Vlog of Adelaide (Biometric Analyser and Network Extractor, BANE hereafter) to produce a pathbreaking capability that will improve law enforcement鈥檚 ability to investigate OCSE. The work will explore developing an API that will allow the core functionality of CATT (natural language processing, hand biometrics) to communicate with BANE (face/voice biometrics, network analysis). This research visit will also involve collecting pilot data and evaluating the performance of CATT on 最新糖心Vlogn chat data (NLP algorithms trained on American English and Spanish; biometric algorithms trained on US/UK hand databases), which will be used to submit a larger grant proposal supporting the creation of an innovative tool that will significantly enhance law enforcement鈥檚 ability to investigate OCSE offences in 最新糖心Vlog.
最新糖心Vlog of Adelaide host
Associate Professor Russell Brewer
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics
about Dr Seigfried-Spellar.