Melissa-Ellen Dowling

Dr Melissa-Ellen Dowling is a Research Fellow in digital technology, security, and governance with the JBC, Flinders University. Her research interests centre around democratic resilience, ideological extremism, foreign interference, digital information operations, and national security policy. Currently, Dr Dowling is chief investigator on the government-funded project Modelling Digital Ideological Extremism and also contributes to wargaming scenario development. She also explores the national security dimensions of online political microtargeting.

Prior to this, she was co-investigator on a Defence-sponsored project, Countering Foreign Interference, which modelled democratic resilience to counter foreign interference in Australia, and also conducted research for the Department of Defence on the use of digital information warfare techniques by non-state actors.

Dr Dowling is the author of Writing Russia (Routledge, 2021), and has published commentary on digital disinformation and malign influence with The Australian Journal of Political Science, British Politics and Policy (London School of Economics), Australian Outlook, The Stretton Institute (The University of Adelaide), the Australian Journal of International Affairs, and Election Watch (Uni. Melbourne).