I am a negotiation enthusiast and my entrepreneurial background inspired me to study negotiations and dive in the vast world of theoretical concepts in this exciting field. After a Master in Business Administration with focus on business negotiation and a Master in International Negotiations, I decided that I want to pursue a career in academia. Since October 2022 I am a PhD candidate in University of Twente, in Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety department.

My PhD research focuses on negotiations with ransomware criminals. The use of ransomware has become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with businesses and individuals alike being targeted by attackers, thus ransomware is being identified as one of top 5 threats to countries globally, according to the World Economic Forum in 2022.

My research aims to understand the processes of an organisation that experiences a ransomware attack, from the first response strategy to the decision-making process of whether to negotiate with the attacker or not, which both define the negotiation process that might follow. By diving deeper into the negotiation itself and by analyzing the negotiation logs, we will be provided with the necessary information that is needed to identify strategies, patterns, communications errors and more.

All these will lead to the development of training programs for the organisations, both those affected and those that haven't yet, but want to become more cyber resilient and through collective learning workshops the societal impact of this research will be apparent.

I am involved in teaching in the "Great Negotiators", the Master Honour's program of the University of Twente, aiming to develop the negotiation and communication skills of students through connecing the theory taught in class with practice via negotiation exercises and participation in international negotiation competitions.