Professor Alison Wakefield
Senior Associate Fellow; Professor of Criminology and Security Studies, University of West London
Biography
Alison Wakefield is Professor of Criminology and Security Studies at the University of West London (UWL), and Co-Director of UWL’s Cybersecurity and Criminology Centre, having joined the University in January 2020. She previously taught at the University of Portsmouth, the University of New South Wales in Sydney, City University London, and the University of Leicester, and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers as a consultant following her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Alongside her research interests, Alison is a specialist in doctoral, distance learning and security education.
Alison’s recent honours and awards include being named one of SC Media UK’s 30 Women of Influence in Cyber Security 2021, winning (alongside her co-authors) the Emerald Outstanding Paper 2018 award for the paper ‘Confronting the “fraud bottleneck”’ in the Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, ranking 3rd in the IFSEC Global Top 50 Most Influential People in Security and Fire 2020 (Association Figures / Academics / Thought Leaders category), and winning the Association of Security Consultants Imbert Associations Prize 2017 for her contribution to the security profession.
She is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, a Commissioner of the National Preparedness Commission, and Academic Adviser to the Chartered Security Professionals Registration Authority, having led the working group that devised the pathways to CSyP certification. She serves on the editorial boards of Security Journal, the Journal of Criminology, the Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice and the Internet Journal of Restorative Justice, and the advisory council for the International Security Expo run annually at Olympia. Alison is also a Chartered Security Professional and a Chair Emeritus, Board Adviser and Fellow of the Security Institute, the UK’s largest member association for security professionals, having served as Chair from 2018 to 2020. She was Executive Secretary of the British Society of Criminology from 2004 to 2008.