Tatiana R. Ringenberg

My mission is to protect people online by understanding how human interactions and influence shape the cybercrime ecosystem.

I am an Assistant Professor in Cybersecurity and Cyber Forensics at Purdue University, where I lead the GUARD (Guarding Users Against Risk and Deception) research group. My work is rooted in the field of social cybersecurity, focusing on the human interactions, social influence, and adaptive behaviors that shape the cybercrime ecosystem. I study how cybercriminals, everyday users, law enforcement officers, and vigilantes interact with each other—and with technology—in high-stakes digital environments, with particular emphasis on online child safety, online fraud, vigilante justice, and cybersecurity education.

A central theme in my research is understanding how persuasion and manipulation influence decision-making in cybercrime contexts, and how these dynamics affect investigations, prevention, and public perception. My doctoral work at Purdue University examined differences in how grooming conversations evolve between offenders and real victims versus offenders and either informal justice actors or law enforcement. This work informed both law enforcement online operations and AI research practices around online grooming detection, emphasizing potential limitations of available datasets within the domain. My dissertation work was also integrated into the CATT tool for detecting grooming risk in online conversations.

I am deeply committed to applied impact. I have developed and delivered training for law enforcement officers at national conferences and during active online chat operations, translating research findings into practical skills for identifying and responding to cyber-enabled crimes. I have also created and led hands-on cybersecurity workshops for high school students, teaching them to recognize and resist online fraud and manipulation.

Before joining Purdue’s faculty, I was a Computing Innovation Fellow at Indiana University and spent nearly a decade in industry in roles spanning incident response, product security, and data privacy. At Purdue, I have taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in Research Methods and developed new courses in Social Engineering and Cyber Law and Ethics; in Fall 2025, I will launch a new course in Cyber Criminology.

I am always interested in increasing collaborations with community organizations, schools, law enforcement agencies, and fellow researchers to advance the understanding and prevention of cybercrime through a human-centered, socially informed lens.