Andrew Dwyer

Andrew is an experienced researcher at the intersection of socio-technical and geopolitical interests in (cyber) security. His research ranges from work within cyber policy and geopolitics, an in-depth knowledge of malware detection, the role of machine learning in international security, to participatory and creative practice. He has spoken to numerous media outlets including The Telegraph, VOA Chinese, and BBC News as well as BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service, and LBC.

Outside of Royal Holloway, he is the Lead of the UK Offensive Cyber Working Group, drawing together academia on questions of UK and international cyber policy. He is also on the editorial board of Digital Geography and Society. Previously, Andrew has been a Research Affiliate at the (former) Centre for Technology and Global Affairs at the University of Oxford and an Assistant Editor at the journal Big Data & Society.

He has also been an Addison Wheeler Research Fellow at Durham University (2020 - 2022), a Research Associate at the University of Bristol's Cyber Security Group (2019 - 2020) and a Visiting Fellow at the SFB-TRR 138 'Dynamics of Security' collaborative research centre in central Germany in 2019.

PhD Students

I am open to applicants from PhD students who have an interest in the socio-technical, ethico-political, and geopolitical dimensions of computation and security. Please do get in touch if you have an idea, with a short summary of that idea along with a current CV. 

Current PhD Students

• Nicola Bates (Co-Supervisors Prof. Kostas Markantonakis & Dr. Darren Hurley-Smith, Information Security)
• Natasha Buckley (Co-Supervisor - Prof. Klaus Dodds, Geography)
• Rebecca Hartley (Co-Supervisor - Prof. Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Information Security)
• Ömer Öztürk (Co-Supervisor - Dr. Rachael Squire, Geography)
• Oisín Phillips (Co-Supervisor - Dr. Michelle Bentley, Politics and International Relations)
• Faria Pitafi (Co-Supervisor - Dr. Michelle Bentley, Politics and International Relations)
• Yasmin Underwood (Co-Supervisor - Dr. Michelle Bentley, Politics and International Relations)

Departmental Responsibilities

• South East Doctoral Training Arc (SEDArc) Departmental Lead
• Departmental PGR Director (Maternity Cover)

Teaching Responsibilities (2023 - 2024)

MSc Information Security

• IY5501/IY4501: Security Management and Methods (Module Co-Lead)
• IY5500: MSc Project (Project Supervisor)

MSc Cyber Security (with University of London)

• CYM020: Security Management and Governance (Module Leader)
• Security Management and Governance MOOC (Lead)

Research Themes

1. Digital Decisions

This explores how different groups of people – ranging from practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers – understand the role of decision with regards to the use of machine learning techniques (often summarised as ‘artificial intelligence’) within cyber security. This takes the role of 'terrain' to examine how decisions become hybrid along with computational forms of recursivity. This draws on research continuing from Andrew's PhD on 'Malware Ecologies.'

2. Contested (Geo)Political Economies of Cyber Policy

This examines how cyber policy and regulation are transforming over time as cyber security becomes embedded within everyday life. This is especially so as it expands and incorporates private and public actors, as well as facing internationally through both offensive and defensive state cyber operations.

3. ‘Critical’ Approaches to Cyber Security

This research strand challenges dominant and normative assumptions of what it means to be secure. That is, what may we be missing, and crucially, how may we develop new ways of thinking and doing that addresses those who are marginalised, including those from the global majority, and who may be embedded with, and exposed to, greater forms of differentiated forms of power and vulnerability.