Dr Lynsay Shepherd

Whilst I welcome this new legislation, it's important to acknowledge the reality of who is being harmed. Statistics show that women and girls are overwhelmingly targeted. This is a direct translation of real-world misogyny into the digital space.

#Deepfakes #CyberSecurity #OnlineSafety

Woman with wavey blonde hair, round glasses, and a blue hoodie sitting in front of a blank whiteboard. The caption reads- Dr Lynsay Shepherd, Cybersecurity expert at Abertay University

👩‍💻I was interviewed by BBC Scotland's News at Seven today to discuss the strengthening of legislation surrounding non-consensual explicit deepfakes, which links in with my research at @abertayuni.bsky.social

The rise of "nudification" tools is a significant threat to digital safety.

I'm taking a very similar approach. It's like Hoth out there.

The launch of our @abertayuni.bsky.social and @rnib.bsky.social XR toolkits was featured on That's TV Tayside in the last 24 hours 🙂 #XR #GLAM #Gaming

www.facebook.com/watch/?v=160...

an older man in a red cardigan says i got a lot of problems Alt: An older man in a red cardigan (Frank Costanza from Seinfeld" says "I got a lot of problems with you people and now, you're gonna hear about it"

I'm getting Frank Costanza vibes

More good news: I was awarded Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy @advancehe.bsky.social today🙂

Games without frontiers: Abertay University and RNIB launch toolkit to make extended reality experiences more accessible for blind and partially sighted people New guidance launched in December 2025 will support accessible design in games and immersive experiences for blind and partially sighted users.

Just launched two new accessible XR toolkits created in collaboration with the @rnib.bsky.social & my team at @abertayuni.bsky.social. We researched, prototyped, & tested with blind & partially sighted users to ensure #InclusiveDesign in #Gaming & #GLAM experiences. www.abertay.ac.uk/news/2025/ga...

Nevermind "The Cat in the Hat", the cat *is* the hat.

I've just had an issue in class and thought I'd made a mistake - glad it's not just me!

A black and white image of Kasteel Woerden, a canal in Woerden flanked by trees and red brick buildings, and a blue KLM plane at Edinburgh airport.

Another awesome trip to the Netherlands 🇳🇱 as part of #ACOP Cyber Offender Prevention: Academia. Great opportunity to catch-up with folks and discuss the challenges in this space. Lots more research to be done at the intersection of #games and #cyber.

We are now finalising our toolkits specifically aimed at the Games Sector and the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector, and we are really excited to share them soon! Stay tuned 😊

#Accessibility #XR #Inclusion #RNIB #TechForGood

Over the last year, my colleagues and I at @abertayuni.bsky.social have been collaborating with the @rnib.bsky.social on creating accessible eXtended Reality experiences.

We recently presented a demo of our work at the Zip-Scene Conference in Prague 👏 🇨🇿 rke.abertay.ac.uk/ws/portalfil...

This afternoon, we were pleased to showcase our work in food innovation and cybersecurity to Stephen Gethins MP. An innovative project designed to track techniques used by criminals in romance fraud… ... This afternoon, we were pleased to showcase our work in food innovation and cybersecurity to Stephen Gethins MP. An innovative project designed to track techniques used by criminals in romance fraud a...

On Friday, @abertayuni.bsky.social had a visit from @stephengethins.bsky.social MP - I presented my #RomanceFraud 💔 research conducted with one of my former MSc students Octavia, and my PhD student Marc
www.linkedin.com/posts/aberta...

It’s all very depressing 😔 Always one for a book recommendation, check out “The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny” by Laura Bates

Friend stole my face for deepfake nudes – now I want tougher laws The victim of one of the first deepfake prosecutions in Scotland says the law needs to change to protect victims.

On Monday I did a bit of filming with BBC News Scotland at @abertayuni.bsky.social on the rise of deepfakes and AI-powered “nudification” applications. The piece is out today on TV, radio and the web. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Just up the road from my village - I can highly recommend Aunty Betty's ice cream place at the waterfront 🙂

In the left-hand pane of the image, there is a cylindrical building with a motorbike in the foreground (it's a Police building). In the top-right, there is a picture of a blue and white KLM plane. In the bottom right, there is a knitted toy of the rabbit Miffy.

Yesterday was an excellent day trip to Utrecht 🇳🇱! I had a great time with the COPS team Politie Nederland, discussing my Abertay University research in cyber and games. Thanks for inviting me over 😊 #GamesTech #Cyber #Research

It seems I cannot access my DMs on BlueSky as it is asking for age verification.

Fellow web dev module lead here. I might have a partial solution to help!

I hope you are on the mend! Admittedly, I too think of Innes any time there's some forbidden smoothie that's been left in the fridge for too long. @innes.bsky.social, what have you started 😆?

Title slide for my talk “Synthetic Seduction: Navigating Romance Scams in XR Environments”. It contains my name, email address (lynsay.shepherd@abertay.ac.uk) and mentions I am talking at an XR event. In the background is a pink, futuristic, mechanical heart.

Loganair turboprop plane waiting at the gate.

Day trip for a wee talk on my research at Abertay University
😊 “Synthetic Seduction: Navigating Romance Scams in XR Environments”. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿. Not prepared for the temperatures though (30c forecast in Manchester) #ImmersiveExperiences #ImmersiveTech #XR #Metaverse

Optimising Tab Management with Machine Learning to Improve User Experience Tabbed browsing can often become a counter-intuitive experience. After opening dozens of tabs, the user interface becomes cluttered, which can lead to a decrease in productivity, unnecessary cognitive...

🤖Another new publication! 🤖 My former MSc Applied Artificial Intelligence & UX student from Abertay Uni and I had a paper titled “Optimising Tab Management with Machine Learning to Improve User Experience” published at HCI International 2025. 😊 link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

A Cookbook for Eye Tracking in Software Engineering | Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Software Engineering Education

👀 New eye tracking paper published 👀 - Abertay University

“A Cookbook for Eye Tracking in Software Engineering” has been published in the Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Software Engineering Education (ECSEE '25) dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Slide with pink and blue cyberpunk themed computers in the background. Slide features my name and university, along with the talk title of “Cognitive Load-ing…: Serious Games for Cyber Awareness”

Early start this morning! Just finished up an online talk for cognitive science students studying at @au.dk in Denmark 🇩🇰, covering some of the serious games and cyber security work we are doing at Abertay University 😊

Person wearing a black RNIB jumper, sitting on an office chair in front of a laptop. They are wearing a VR headset.

Great day! Hailey Austin and I spent the day down at @rnibscotland.bsky.social in Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 testing our accessible VR Abertay University project work with blind and visually impaired people. Huge thank you to @jameskyle.bsky.social for organising this! Very informative session!

The memories! I concentrated on that boulder field so much when climbing (worried about falling and smashing the hip) that I could still see it while I closed my eyes to sleep that evening

I've had similar comments because I did my BSc, MSc and PhD at the same institution (and now work there). Healthcare differences between regions and family means moving around is not an option. Also, I like where I am 🙂

Collaboration between researchers, online platform providers and law enforcement is needed to address the issue of romance scams in the future.

Studies exploring the socio-demographic and psychological factors associated with scammers and victims were limited. Few empirical studies focused on the interaction between scammers and victims on messaging platforms.

As part of the review, 279 papers were screened. 107 papers were assessed for eligibility, and 53 were included in the final analysis. #RomanceFraud #CyberCrime #HumanComputerInteraction