I have a background in design and 23 years of experience in the creative industry, including running my own agency for 13 years. In 2022, I entered the online dating and social discovery sector intending to build a dating platform. I had the name trademarked and a development team ready. At the same time, I wanted to pivot my career and decided to pursue a Masters degree, focusing my research on dating platforms and the sector.

Building a dating platform and pursuing a postgraduate degree ran in parallel. As I began developing the platform, I became increasingly concerned about security and safety. The more literature and research I read, the clearer it became that the sector’s safety challenges were deeper and more complex than I had first imagined.

I felt a very strong pull, the strongest I have experienced in my career, and abandoned the idea of building my own platform. Instead, I redirected my career towards research, focusing on safety, identity verification and data governance in online dating and social discovery platforms.

Driven by concerns about gendered harm and structural platform failures, I now examine how verification mechanisms, data-sharing practices and platform design can better protect users, particularly women, from online and offline harm.

Today, I work with the Online Dating and Discovery Association (ODDA) and hold an Industry and Innovation Fellowship with the Open University Centre for Protecting Women Online (CPWO).

I use Medium and Substack as creative outlets to share the research, ideas, and evidence that shape my thinking, along with findings I can publish publicly. They are also spaces where I explore emerging issues, test theories and develop my thinking.

If you use dating platforms, you may find that some of my articles help you better understand how platform design shapes your experience.

If you are a designer or researcher, you may find structural insights, emerging themes and opportunities for further inquiry.

If you work within the industry, the perspectives shared here are intended to challenge assumptions and encourage reflection.

I care deeply about human connection and the social impact of isolation. For me, online dating and social discovery platforms sit at the intersection of both.