معرفی
Dr. K. (Kate) Labunets serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences within the Faculty of Science at Utrecht University, Netherlands. Her research bridges cyber security and human factors with empirical methodologies, contributing to projects including the VSNU Digital Society track on Safety and Security and the H2020 CYBECO initiative.
Her academic background includes:
- PhD in Information and Communication Technology, University of Trento, Italy
- Master in Mathematics, Belarussian State University, Minsk, Belarus
Dr. Labunets' research focuses on security behaviour, cyber risk management, and empirical evaluation of security methods. She investigates how practitioners adopt security solutions to optimize time and resource allocation, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze human aspects in security systems. Her work emphasizes practical applications for improving organizational security postures.
Her 2022 publication on VPN mental models demonstrates her focus on human-centric security research, examining cognitive frameworks of security tools in corporate environments. This work reveals critical gaps between expert and non-expert perceptions, informing better security tool design and implementation strategies across disciplines.
Dr. Labunets actively contributes to academic recognition through conference presentations at venues like USENIX Security Symposium. Her collaborative work with researchers including Veroniek Binkhorst and Wolter Pieters advances understanding of security human factors in real-world contexts.
As an educator, she supervises students and teaches courses including Information Security, Scientific Research Methods for Business Informatics, and Software Ecosystem Security. She mentors through first-year and senior-year ICS tutoring programs, emphasizing student development and strength identification within Business Informatics and Computer Science curricula.
She operates within the Software Production research group under broader themes of Foundations of Complex Systems and Governing the Digital Society, focusing on human dimensions of digital infrastructure security.
