About us
Ethical AI to help
save lives
At Trilateral Research, we feel passionately about making the world a better place by providing Ethical AI solutions to tackle complex social problems.
With award-winning services in research, data protection and cyber-risk, ethics innovation and sociotech insights our team takes an end-to-end approach that fully integrates the technical, legal and social science dimensions. This helps our clients answer the right questions, analyse the right data and get meaningful insights to focus their action for the greatest impacts.
Our ethical AI has a tangible impact in the fight against the biggest challenges we are currently facing such as modern slavery and human trafficking, climate action, child exploitation, human security in conflict and crisis settings, and many more.
Trilateral Milestones
2004 - Founded
2009 - Growth strategy implementation in research driven impact
2012 - Expansion of interdisciplinary Innovation & Research Services
2015 - Launch of Data Protection and Cybersecurity services
2018 - Initiation of co-design of AI innovation activities – STRIAD, STRIAD:HAMOC & CESIUM
2022 – CESIUM validation
2023 - CESIUM and STRIAD:AIR launched
Trilateral by the Numbers
Years
Personnel
Publications
Research projects
Growth since 2018
Clients
Research partners
Countries we’ve worked in
Meet our Teams
Sarah Alderton
Head of Corporate Services
Sarah Alderton is a Head of Corporate Services at Trilateral Research.
Her priority is to help make Trilateral an inspiring place to work, by developing a people management and development framework that enables everyone to do their best work, in a culture that reflects the company’s strong values.
Sarah has more than fifteen years’ experience providing HR support to a variety of industries including IT services, Publishing, Education and Healthcare. Having worked in a range of in-house roles, covering mergers and acquisitions, organisational development, HR service delivery and employee relations, she has most recently worked as a consultant for several businesses providing support across all stages of the employee experience, as well as helping to develop the High Performance Change program, both in New Zealand and the UK.
Her main passion is helping managers and leaders acquire the skills and confidence to develop their teams and grow their businesses. She co-wrote the High Performance Change program, designed to develop adaptability in people and organisations to become “match-fit” for continuous change. She holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Human Resources Management, Certificate in Executive Coaching, Certificate in Team Coaching, a degree in Business Studies with International Hotel Management, and is a Chartered Member of the CIPD in the UK and the HR Institute of New Zealand.
Nancy Baker
Chief Finance Officer
Nancy is responsible for statutory and management financial reporting and contributing to long-term business and financial strategy. Nancy has been a part of the Trilateral management team as an advisor since 2009, evolving into a formal role as CFO as the company has grown to more than 100 employees.
With more than 30 years of management experience, she has worked in large, medium and small companies and supported the development of teams through mentoring and a supportive management approach. Her prior roles have included mainly operations management roles for global software development and technology services firms.At Trilateral, Nancy also contributes significantly to the implementation of good practices within the organisation, developing policy and process and guiding changes to processes as growth demands.
Dr Rachel Finn
Director, Data Protection & Cyber-risk Services / Head of Irish Operations
Rachel leads Trilateral’s Data Protection and Cyber-risk services (DCS) for the public and private sector. These include data protection compliance support, cyber-security management and data governance support, such as Outsourced DPO-as-a-service, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and developing data sharing arrangements between organisations. Alongside DCS, Rachel also represents Trilateral’s full suite of solutions in Ireland, including ethical AI, sociotech insights and research.
Working with technology developers to identify legal requirements, privacy and data protection risks and workable solutions has been a particular theme throughout her work. Rachel has implemented this through commercial projects on data protection and privacy-by-design requirements, as well as coordinating multi-million Euro EU-funded research projects on large-scale predictive analytics, eGovernment solutions and open access to research data. She has co-developed methods for translating privacy, data protection and ethical requirements into technical requirements to support responsible and ethical AI that have been used in many innovation projects, including Trilateral’s internal software development.
Rachel is widely published and has a number of often-cited publications, including “
Unmanned aircraft systems: Surveillance, ethics and privacy in civil applications” and “Seven types of privacy“. Her latest book, Open Data in the Knowledge Society, is available as an open access publication.
Prior to joining Trilateral Research, Rachel held postdoctoral positions at University of Manchester and University of Hull. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Manchester and a double BA in Sociology and Psychology from Johns Hopkins University.
Dr Hayley Watson
Director, Sociotech Innovation
Hayley is a member of the Senior Management Team and oversees the Sociotech for Good function. Hayley leads strategic efforts to ensure sustainable impact from our ethical AI solutions and complementary sociotech services and their ability to support decision-makers with evidence-based insights to tackle complex social challenges.
Hayley started at Trilateral Research in 2012 as a Research Analyst, where she focused on research on public vulnerabilities stemming from the impact of security-related issues (crisis, conflict, terrorism, human security, human trafficking) and the role of emerging technology in public protection. Over the years, Hayley has advanced to managing interdisciplinary teams and growing our data science, software development and product management teams, to support the company in its efforts to delivering ethical AI solutions.
Hayley is particularly interested in innovation efforts within responsible sociotech approaches to research and innovation and how to consider both social and technical factors in the design of our technologies that, in turn, have a tangible impact on the problems our clients are combatting.
Hayley is one of the editors of the volume, Digital Methods for Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Research Innovation which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015, and Human Trafficking in Conflict – Context, Causes and the Military (2020). She has published peer-reviewed journal articles in relation to security and the threat of terrorism, as well as social media and crisis management. She has participated in many international conferences, as well as publishing in the popular press. Hayley was involved in the ISCRAM community (Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management) and from 2013-2017 co-chaired the ELSI track and working group on Ethical, Legal and Social Issues of IT-supported emergency response.
Hayley has a BA in Criminology and Sociology, an MA in Methods of Social Research, and a PhD in Sociology (relating to the public response to terrorism) from the University of Kent and is a certified AWS Cloud Practitioner.
Dr David Wright
Founder & Chief Research Officer
David leads Trilateral’s Innovation & Research service in overseeing the progress and implementation of TRI’s research projects and in developing proposals for new projects in diverse areas of interest to TRI, such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data protection, ethics, the environment, inequalities and democracy, and socio-economic impact assessment.
David founded Trilateral Research in 2004. David wrote and won his first two projects, SWAMI and STARC, on the topics of ambient intelligence and risk communications respectively, topics that have continued to permeate many of TRI’s other EU-funded projects. David is a prolific writer, continually expanding TRI’s areas of research through his work and thought leadership. He has been the principal author for many of TRI’s winning proposals such as PRESCIENT (data protection and foresight), PROTAX (money laundering and financial crime), IRISS (surveillance in Europe), SATORI (ethics in Europe), SIENNA (stakeholder engagement), SHERPA (ethics of smart information systems), PIAF (privacy impact assessment), REAL_DEAL (European Green Deal), COPKIT (fighting crime and terrorism), CYBERSPACE (cybersecurity), PACE (populism in Europe), PHAEDRA (data protection), SAPIENT (fundamental rights). He currently co-ordinates the EU-funded CC-DRIVER project on the human and technical drivers of cybercrime.
He has published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Communications of the ACM, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, The Information Society, European Law Enforcement Research Bulletin, IEEE Security & Privacy, Computer Law & Security Review, Science and Public Policy, IEEE Technology & Society, Ethics and Information Technology, Futures, Foresight, Telematics and Informatics, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Journal of Information, Communications and Ethics in Society, The Journal of Contemporary European Research.He has co-edited and co-authored four books, including Privacy Impact Assessment (Springer, 2012) and Surveillance in Europe (Routledge, 2015). He coined the term and published the first article on ethical impact assessment. The ISO standard on privacy impact assessment (ISO 29134) was based on his PIA methodology. Similarly, the European Standardisation Committee Workshop Agreement (CEN CWA) on ethical impact assessment is based on his EIA methodology. He has participated in several foresight expert groups, including four ENISA expert groups and a DG Research Trust-at-Risk foresight group. He has developed several scenario construction methodologies, including policy scenarios for the EU-funded SHERPA project as well as “dark scenarios”, a term he coined in the SWAMI project. He is a member of the European Foresight Monitoring Network and a freelance member of the faculty of Law Science Technology & Society (LSTS) Studies at the Vrjie Universiteit Brussels.
Favourite technological innovations: Artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Current favourite non-fiction: The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI. Among favourite novels: IQ84, Shadow of the Wind. Among favourite bands: Wax & Boogie.
Kush Wadhwa
Chief Executive Officer & Chief Technology Officer
Kush leads Trilateral in the dual roles of CEO and CTO, providing strategic direction for the development of ethical AI products to combat complex societal challenges. With the support and input of the Leadership team, he sets strategic direction for the company, defines key objectives for each of the business units, sets direction for the development of our AI products, mentors team members as they strive to broaden their reach, and leads the team to develop a vibrant, innovative, values-driven organisational culture.
Kush joined Trilateral as a Partner in 2009, taking an active role in research and innovation, and developing a longer-term strategy for the company, growing it from a team of 2 to over 100 and expanding beyond the UK to include operations in Ireland. Based on his background in software and tech development Kush recognised the opportunity to leverage Trilateral’s strong core of experts in privacy, data protection, and ethics, to grow the company from a research consultancy to an ethical AI development company. He has guided the team through each successive phase of recurring, research-driven innovation to build Trilateral’s commercial services and break-through technology products.
Prior to joining Trilateral, Kush was already an established entrepreneur, working with small businesses either as a founder or as an agent of change to stabilise under-performing organisations and launch them on a growth trajectory. He has experience in establishing and developing businesses in the US, UK, Canada, Costa Rica, Malaysia, India, Ireland and Greece, and in diverse business sectors including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, telecom, real estate, hospitality, consulting, software development and technology.
In addition to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Kush has also worked in a broad range of corporate roles, including in consulting, technology development, product management, business development, and general management roles. He has worked for both large and small companies and delivered products and services to clients from government, inter-governmental and humanitarian agencies (White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, US Department of Homeland Security, UK Home Office, European Commission, NATO, UNHCR, OECD, American Red Cross) as well as large-scale private sector organisations (e.g., Pfizer, AIG, Hoechst, Google, Pitney Bowes, MasterCard, amongst others).
His main interests continue to lie in the creative elements of building value from small businesses, not only for the impact it promises for the economy in which it grows, but also for the impact that dedicated, inspired and aspirational innovators can have on society.
Kush holds an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business as well as a BEng in Electrical Engineering and a BA in English Literature from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is widely published on a range of topics related to innovation management, privacy, data protection, risk management, crisis and disaster management, biometrics, surveillance technologies, and open access.
Dr Ruaraidh Dobson
Programme Manager (Air Quality)
Ruaraidh leads work on air quality, health and environment at Trilateral. His key interest is making data on air pollution meaningful, understandable and urgent to protect health and encourage effective changes in policy and behaviour.
Ruaraidh has rich experience in air pollution monitoring, epidemiology and behavioural science. He has worked on research in more than a dozen countries across Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, conducting air quality projects from Malawi to Malaysia and Ireland to Israel. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles on air pollution exposure and health and was formerly the UK Research and Innovation Clean Air Champion for Scotland.
Ruaraidh’s work focuses on the “now what?” of air quality and environmental data. This includes understanding the health, wealth and wellbeing effects of outdoor air pollution in local communities to create positive conditions for change, as well as research on how exposure changes over time for different groups of people. He has a keen interest in using air pollution data to achieve net zero and decarbonisation goals.
Ruaraidh’s background is in exposure science and environmental epidemiology. He holds a PhD in Health Science from the University of Stirling (focused on the use of air quality information for behaviour change) and a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Glasgow. In addition to his work at Trilateral, he is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in the Institute for Social Marketing and Health at the University of Stirling and holds a post as Associate Lecturer at London Metropolitan University, where he teaches and supervises epidemiology students.
Ilaria Bonavita
Lead – Data Science, Research and Sociotech Innovation
Ilaria is responsible for coordinating and developing technical solutions in research projects, mainly in the Horizon research environment (Project STAMINA, COVINFORM, TECHETHOS). Her work involves identifying innovative data science solutions in the Sociotech for Good domain that can advance the insights we provide through our products.
Ilaria holds an MSc. in Mathematical Engineering and a BSc. in Applied Mathematics from the Polytechnic University of Turin. She was a postgraduate researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich within the Marie Curie ITN “Machine Learning for Personalised Medicine” framework during which she investigated machine learning and statistical models of genotype-disease interactions. Before joining Trilateral Research, Ilaria worked as Data Scientist in Eurecat – Technological Centre of Catalonia (Barcelona) where she was involved in the design and development of data-driven solutions for the digital health public and private sector.
She is particularly interested in creating machine learning and statistical models of complex real-life phenomena that account for social and ethical perspectives aimed at enhancing societal wellbeing while controlling for the potential harm implied by inappropriate use of technology.
Dr Anita Nandi
Principal Data Scientist
Anita is currently leading the technical development for products and projects primarily focussed on policing and exploitation (CESIUM and IRON). She leverages machine learning techniques to augment professional decision making and help combat child exploitation, with a focus on ensuring that all insights are relevant and understandable to the user.
Anita has a PhD in Physics from University of Oxford, involving applying machine learning algorithms on huge datasets to make measurements of particle behaviour. She also worked as a postdoctoral researcher with the Malaria Atlas Project based at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford. This involved working within a multidisciplinary team researching spatial modelling techniques to improve malaria risk predictions for future research and policy decisions. Anita has over 8 years of experience of analysing large datasets in the fields of physics, epidemiology, statistics, medicine, and policing. Her main interests lie in building statistical or machine learning models to address societal issues, while understanding the context and biases of the datasets involved, and ensuring the outputs explainable, transparent, and relevant to those using them. Anita has authored several peer-reviewed publications in the fields of particle physics, epidemiology, statistics, and medicine.
Prodromos Lilitsis
Software Engineering Manager
Prodromos joined Trilateral Research as a Software Engineering Manager mid 2022. He interfaces between the technical team, the product management team and the business. His job is to translate product requirements into work items that the team can perform.
His primary focus is to inspire individuals to show their best potential in a fast-growing and agile environment through adaptive goal setting. This will maximise the value delivered to the customers, through strategic planning.
He values people over processes and technical skills as this will motivate them to perform their job better. As Aristotle said, “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work”.
Prodromos has been working in software development for more than 8 years, using different technologies and cloud computing platforms.
Prodromos started his early career as a Research & Development Engineer back in Greece, where the challenge was to build innovative software that could support travellers all over the world using Augmented Reality & Artificial Intelligence. Later, he moved in the UK to further grow his career, as a Software Engineer for i-nexus, a Strategy Execution software company. Afterwords, he challenged himself in Refinitiv, building software against financial crime. During his service there he was inspired to adapt an Agile mindset and take his first steps in management as a Team Leader.
Prodromos is certified in Agile methodologies, as he holds the Professional Scrum Master I, Professional Scrum Master II, Professional Agile Leadership I certifications. He also has BSc and MSc in Computer Science from university of Crete.
Raffaele Loseto
Senior Software Engineering Manager
Raffaele works across our product portfolio, providing guidance to cross-functional engineering teams in their journey to deliver Ethical AI solutions for tackling complex social problems.
He focuses on guiding development efforts towards successful delivery of multiple projects across the Business Unit, assuring high quality and security standards by establishing good practices and habits. His interests lie in identifying and encouraging areas for growth and supporting the organisation in the implementation of Agile and Lean methodologies, establishing a culture of Operational Excellence.
In the past 8 years within the IT industry, Raffaele has developed a strong high-performance culture, allowing him to focus on delivering value through strategic planning and goal setting.
Raffaele joined Trilateral Research in 2021 as a Software Engineering Manager. During the first few months, he observed and assessed the software engineering practices implemented by the team responsible for the development of HAMOC, and he accompanied them through a complete transformation journey.
Today Raffaele keeps alive a customer-focused software development cycle that lives across multiple teams, ensures the maximization of delivery Flow over Human Utilisation, safeguards the psychological health of the engineering team members, and provides transversal management support, forging strong relationships between different teams and areas of the organisation.
During his time working at Refinitiv, he led two development teams allocated on the World-Check One product, delivering strategic tools to support customers in their due diligence needs in the fight against financial crime, bribery, and corruption. He worked on projects such as the migration process from on-premises-based architecture to the cloud, the evolution of the UI tech stack and structure, feature improvement of the On-Going Screening tool in World-Check One, and others.In his years as a Software Engineer, he worked mostly within the Financial Services sector, developing software solutions for insurance companies, banks, and credit entities. As part of his role at Fincons Group (Bari, Italy) he contributed to the modernization and maintenance of ITAS Assicurazioni’s claims management system, starting from the feasibility to final release in production. Raffaele is a certified Professional Scrum Master (PSM), and he holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”.
Dr Stephen Anning
Product Manager
Dr Stephen Anning is the Product Manager for CESIUM, which is a new way to safeguarding children from exploitation with Ethical AI. As CESIUM’s product manager, he manages end user engagement with local safeguarding partnerships, develops the product roadmap, ensures the ethical aspects of the AI, develops and delivers training, and leads on business development.
Steve joined Trilateral Research following a career in the British Army and four years at IBM primarily working with UK Police on responding to cybercrime. His time in the Army was operationally focused with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Northern Ireland. His final role before was in developing large-scale intelligence systems for the MOD. As an Army Reservist led a research project on understanding the implications of human trafficking in conflict. His work with the Police centred on digital policing as response to cybercrime with focus on fraud and modern slavery.
Stephen’s PhD is about rethinking hate speech detection as hostile narrative analysis by connecting Peace Research to with Natural Language Processing. He holds an MA in Conflict, Security and Development from Kings College London and an MSc in Web Science from Southampton University. He has published work in Parameters, Web Science Conference 2021 proceedings and the Journal of Intelligence, Warfare and Conflict. Aspects of his text analytics work are also under development for Trilateral’s technology stack.
Toby Fenton
Product Growth Manager
Toby works to drive the strategic growth and expansion of Trilateral’s STRIAD platform. He integrates market insights, user research, social science, data science, ethics, and Trilateral’s wider technology innovation projects.
Toby’s background lies in product management, research, and consultancy within the defence and security sector. He has worked on a variety of areas including the human security environment (technology and policy); geospatial tools; risk assessment frameworks; the intelligence cycle; defence/security market analysis; digital product development; defence technology horizon scanning; amongst others.
He has a keen interest in technology, strategy, decision-making, problem-solving in complex domains, international relations and security studies, and figuring things out. Toby holds an MA in International Peace and Security (IPS) from King’s College London and a BSc in International Relations from the University of Plymouth. His MA dissertation was a comparative analysis of Russia’s attitude towards intervention in Libya and Syria during 2011-2015.
Dr Filippo Marchetti
Head of Strategic Impact
Filippo leads the delivery of regulatory advisory services to over a dozen organisations in the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States, and provides advice to international organisations and agencies (esp. UN and EU agencies) on good strategies and obligations when transitioning to new technologies.
He also carries out legal and policy research in the fields of privacy and ethics of emerging technologies, with particular focus on the use of data to protect vulnerable individuals such as child-exploitation victims and to enhance human security.
Filippo is a non-tenured Adjunct Professor of Law at Bocconi University (Milan).
He authored and co-authored several articles, book chapters, technical reports, and national reports on data protection & privacy law, private international law, and technology law and policy, including peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the Italian Rivista di diritto internazionale privato e processuale and in Hart Publishing and Wolters Kluwer volumes.
Filippo presented his research findings at several international conferences, including a paper on the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on the Lugano Regime at the 2017 Biennial Conference of the Journal of Private International Law, and a presentation on the data-protection aspect of commercial-drones operations at the 2019 RPAS CivOps Conference.
Before joining Trilateral Research, he worked as a Research Fellow in International and European Union Law at the University of Milan. There, in addition to his research tasks, he carried out research and coordination activities for the purposes of the EUFAMS and EUPILLAR projects, and participated in the activities of the International Law Association’s Committee on the Protection of Privacy in Private International Law.Filippo holds a doctoral degree in International Law and Economics from Bocconi University and a master’s degree in International Economic Relations from the University of Milan.
Filippo practices aikido and has a passion for aviation and astronomy.
Dr Zachary J. Goldberg
Ethics Innovation Manager
Zachary leads work translating ethical theory and ethical standards into practical steps achieving sustainable impact and responsible innovation. He oversees and carries out ethics services for public and private sector clients and our in-house tech team on the ethics of AI, responsible AI, explainable AI, ethics-by-design, technology and information ethics, research ethics and AI regulations in the EU and UK.
Zachary started at Trilateral in 2019 where he focused on leading ethical/privacy/societal impact assessments in several H2020 proposals and projects in the domains of border security and health. Now, Zachary leads the Ethics Innovation team and oversees ethics services for clients including ethics assessments, audits and consulting as well as mapping out ethics-driven strategies focusing on ethical AI.
Zachary has provided ethics research, discovery, advising and foresight planning to: European Reference Network for Critical Infrastructure Protection thematic group on Early Warning Zones and Artificial Intelligence (EU); FRONTEX (EU); United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, Association of Document Verification Professionals (UK); numerous public sector organisations and startups. He serves on the Ethics Advisory Committee for Digital Catapult and gave a TEDx talk on the ethics of technology at TEDxKassel. He has presented his research at scores of academic and industry conferences. Most recent titles include: “Responsive Adjustment for AI: The Nature of Responsibility for the Design and Deployment of AI Systems,” Responsible AI Forum; “How to Build Trustworthy AI for Defence: The TRI-XAI Approach,” DSTL AI Fest 4; On the Ethical Foundations of the EC Ethics Requirements”, Philosophy of Human and Technology Relations; “Ethical Education for Technology Professionals in the Digital Age”, 7th Responsible Management Education Research Conference.
Zachary completed his post-doctoral degree (Habilitation) in ethics and moral philosophy at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Prior to taking up this position he was Postdoc in Normative Ethics at Universität Regensburg. He holds a Ph.D. in moral philosophy and applied ethics from Arizona State University, an M.A. in philosophy from Stony Brook University, and a B.A. summa cum laude in philosophy from Emory University.Zachary is the author of over 18 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Recent titles include: “Translating Ethical Theory into Ethical Action: An Ethic of Responsibility Approach to Value-Oriented Design,” Communications in Computer and Information Science vol. 1382; “Ethical Responsibility in Space Exploration,” Moving technology ethics at the forefront of society, organisations and governments, p. 157-168. In addition, he is author of Evil Matters: A Philosophical Inquiry (Routledge 2021), co-editor of the Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies (Routledge 2019), the editor of Reflections on Ethics and Responsibility: Essays in Honor of Peter A. French (Springer 2017).
Dr Julia Muraszkiewicz
Head of Programme for Human Trafficking and Human Rights
Julia is the Head of Programme for Human Trafficking and Human Rights and works with the Trilateral team of social and data scientists, as well as multiple clients, on an end-to-end journey to understand and solve complex societal problems.
Julia has rich experience in national and international project management in a variety of areas such as law, human trafficking, victim rights, crime, responsible technology, sociotech and human security. She enjoys qualitative research, especially legal assessments, compliance and using empirical methods such as focus groups and interviews. More recently, she fell in love with supporting the development of AI/ML through the application of social science expertise.
Julia is also a passionate teacher, delivering trainings and workshops and ensuring course attendees acquire a comprehensive, applied understanding of the subject. She has delivered trainings to police, border force, airport staff, civil servants, civil society, faith groups and students.
Julia is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Human Trafficking (Taylor & Francis) and, together with her colleagues, she co-edited the first book on human trafficking in conflict. She has also published a book on the non-punishment of victims of human trafficking.
Alongside the books, she has published over 15 peer-reviewed articles on human trafficking. She is also the co-host of the Humans of Security podcast.
Julia’s background is in human rights and criminal law. She has a PhD in Law from Vrije University Brussels and an LLM in International Development and Human Rights from the University of Warwick. She passed the Bar Vocational Course (UK), and is currently delivering academic courses in the field of Space Law. Julia is also affiliated with the University of Amsterdam where she teaches Comparative Constitutional Law. In the past Julia has worked as a support worker at a safe house for victims of human trafficking.
Dr Hayley Watson
Director, Sociotech Innovation
Hayley is a member of the Senior Management Team and oversees the Sociotech for Good function. Hayley leads strategic efforts to ensure sustainable impact from our ethical AI solutions and complementary sociotech services and their ability to support decision-makers with evidence-based insights to tackle complex social challenges.
Hayley started at Trilateral Research in 2012 as a Research Analyst, where she focused on research on public vulnerabilities stemming from the impact of security-related issues (crisis, conflict, terrorism, human security, human trafficking) and the role of emerging technology in public protection. Over the years, Hayley has advanced to managing interdisciplinary teams and growing our data science, software development and product management teams, to support the company in its efforts to delivering ethical AI solutions.
Hayley is particularly interested in innovation efforts within responsible sociotech approaches to research and innovation and how to consider both social and technical factors in the design of our technologies that, in turn, have a tangible impact on the problems our clients are combatting.
Hayley is one of the editors of the volume, Digital Methods for Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Research Innovation which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015, and Human Trafficking in Conflict – Context, Causes and the Military (2020). She has published peer-reviewed journal articles in relation to security and the threat of terrorism, as well as social media and crisis management. She has participated in many international conferences, as well as publishing in the popular press. Hayley was involved in the ISCRAM community (Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management) and from 2013-2017 co-chaired the ELSI track and working group on Ethical, Legal and Social Issues of IT-supported emergency response.
Hayley has a BA in Criminology and Sociology, an MA in Methods of Social Research, and a PhD in Sociology (relating to the public response to terrorism) from the University of Kent and is a certified AWS Cloud Practitioner.
25+ Data Scientists, Software Engineers & UI/UX Designers
40+ Ethical AI & Data Protection professionals & Subject Matter Experts
AWS certifications
Scrum Master certification
Paula Swales
Data Protection Advisor
Niall Keegan
Senior Data Protection Advisor
Niall is a Senior Data Protection Advisor at Trilateral Research responsible for delivering Outsourced DPO and Data Protection compliance support projects, including embedding data protection-by-design and -default throughout the data lifecycle within clients’ organisations. This includes developing appropriate and tailored policies and procedures, undertaking risk assessments and impact assessments regarding the processing of personal data (DPIAs), supporting the development of documentation to demonstrate compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018, as well as the Health Research Regulations.
Niall is an experienced data protection and information manager. He is also a highly skilled technical writer and editor with a professional interest and expertise in digital transformation and digital continuity. He was previously Head of Information Management at the Government Digital Service (GDS), UK Cabinet Office; and more recently, led the GDS Privacy and Data Protection Office. He also spent several years as Guidance Editor at The National Archives, Kew, developing sector-leading guidance on Metadata and Cataloguing standards, Digital Preservation, and Digital Continuity.
Niall is a Certified Information Privacy Manager. He holds an MSc in Library and Information Science from the University of London, and an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama from University College Dublin.
Alannah Carey Bates
Senior Data Protection Advisor
Alannah oversees the delivery of outsourced Data Protection Officer services to Irish public sector clients and is leading the development of service improvement for public sector clients and information request services. Alannah is particularly interested in understanding client needs to ensure a tailored and personalised service is delivered to our clients. Having led on operationalising and embedding data protection practice in public sector organisations, she is well placed to understand the unique challenges faced in this sector and can provide practical solutions to address them.
Alannah has wide ranging experience in the field of data protection having worked in both the public and private sectors. In recent years Alannah held the position of Head of Information Rights Operations and Deputy DPO at UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body of the UK government where she successfully led transformation of the Data Protection and Freedom of Information teams. Other previous roles have included holding the position of Data Protection Officer for a multi academy trust (MAT) where she successfully designed and implemented a privacy program on the introduction of the GDPR.
Alannah is an IAPP member and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E) and Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM). She also holds a BCS professional membership and has completed the Certificate in Information Security Management Principles (CISMP) with BCS. Alannah holds a PDP Practitioners Certificate in Freedom of Information.
When she gets a chance, Alannah enjoys tap dancing!
Dr Thordis Sveinsdottir
Service Manager
Thordis is part of the Data Protection and Cyber-Risk Service team. As part of her work, she manages data protection service delivery for public and private clients, to enable their compliance with applicable European and national legislation when processing personal data. She also provides advisory services to organisations on data governance and data management, as well as contributes to research in this field.
Thordis is an IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional – Europe (CIPP/E) and Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM)
Thordis has gathered extensive experience in research, evaluation and analysis within the European R&I field; she also has experience with externally funded projects and initiatives by the European Commission, and UK-funded projects by Science and Technology Facilities Council, and the Economic and Social Research Council. Thordis’ work has focused on data since 2012 when she contributed to the EC-funded RECODE project, which developed policy recommendations for driving open access to research data in Europe. Since then, she has worked on research and consultancy in data openness, data ethics, data audits and data protection, as well as writing data governance policies and strategy documents for UK and international organisations.
Thordis contributed to the European Commission-funded report on Science 2.0: Science in Transition and in March 2018 was invited as an expert panel member to the OECD Joint CSTP-GSF Workshop: Towards New Principles for Enhanced Access to Public Data for Science, Technology and Innovation, from which the findings will contribute to an update of the 2007 OECD Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from Public Funding.
Thordis has published on the topic of ‘Open Access to Research’ and co-authored the book Open Data and the Knowledge Society, published by Amsterdam University Press in 2017.Thordis has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Surrey (UK).
Dr Filippo Marchetti
Head of Strategic Impact
Filippo leads the delivery of regulatory advisory services to over a dozen organisations in the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States, and provides advice to international organisations and agencies (esp. UN and EU agencies) on good strategies and obligations when transitioning to new technologies.
He also carries out legal and policy research in the fields of privacy and ethics of emerging technologies, with particular focus on the use of data to protect vulnerable individuals such as child-exploitation victims and to enhance human security.
Filippo is a non-tenured Adjunct Professor of Law at Bocconi University (Milan).
He authored and co-authored several articles, book chapters, technical reports, and national reports on data protection & privacy law, private international law, and technology law and policy, including peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the Italian Rivista di diritto internazionale privato e processuale and in Hart Publishing and Wolters Kluwer volumes.
Filippo presented his research findings at several international conferences, including a paper on the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on the Lugano Regime at the 2017 Biennial Conference of the Journal of Private International Law, and a presentation on the data-protection aspect of commercial-drones operations at the 2019 RPAS CivOps Conference.
Before joining Trilateral Research, he worked as a Research Fellow in International and European Union Law at the University of Milan. There, in addition to his research tasks, he carried out research and coordination activities for the purposes of the EUFAMS and EUPILLAR projects, and participated in the activities of the International Law Association’s Committee on the Protection of Privacy in Private International Law.Filippo holds a doctoral degree in International Law and Economics from Bocconi University and a master’s degree in International Economic Relations from the University of Milan.
Filippo practices aikido and has a passion for aviation and astronomy.
Dr Rachel Finn
Director, Data Protection & Cyber-risk Services / Head of Irish Operations
Rachel leads Trilateral’s Data Protection and Cyber-risk services (DCS) for the public and private sector. These include data protection compliance support, cyber-security management and data governance support, such as Outsourced DPO-as-a-service, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and developing data sharing arrangements between organisations. Alongside DCS, Rachel also represents Trilateral’s full suite of solutions in Ireland, including ethical AI, sociotech insights and research.
Working with technology developers to identify legal requirements, privacy and data protection risks and workable solutions has been a particular theme throughout her work. Rachel has implemented this through commercial projects on data protection and privacy-by-design requirements, as well as coordinating multi-million Euro EU-funded research projects on large-scale predictive analytics, eGovernment solutions and open access to research data. She has co-developed methods for translating privacy, data protection and ethical requirements into technical requirements to support responsible and ethical AI that have been used in many innovation projects, including Trilateral’s internal software development.
Rachel is widely published and has a number of often-cited publications, including “
Unmanned aircraft systems: Surveillance, ethics and privacy in civil applications” and “Seven types of privacy“. Her latest book, Open Data in the Knowledge Society, is available as an open access publication.
Prior to joining Trilateral Research, Rachel held postdoctoral positions at University of Manchester and University of Hull. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Manchester and a double BA in Sociology and Psychology from Johns Hopkins University.
40+ data protection and cyber-security professionals
Multiple CIPP-certified professionals
Data Governance certifications
Cybersecurity expertise
Multidisciplinary backgrounds
Dr Nicola Labanca
Cluster Lead – Climate, Environment and Energy
Nicola leads Trilateral’s work on climate, environment and energy within the Innovation & Research team. He manages and conducts socio-technical research in the areas of climate change and environmental, social and economic sustainability. Moreover, he works with all other Trilateral teams to align this research with our ethical AI solutions and relevant advisory services, including the development of new data-driven software to improve environmental policies at the local level.
His research focuses on the ethical challenges of new insight-based tools, technologies and data. His current work informs government and community approaches to resilience, emergent participatory practices and methods for participatory democracy, standards and policies for decreased pollution in farming practices
Before joining Trilateral, Nicola was a senior researcher at the Joint Researcher Centre of the European Commission (2012-2020). There, he was responsible for monitoring and analysing the EU and worldwide energy-efficiency services market. Moreover, he supported the European Commission in the design and implementation of multiple eco-design and energy-labelling regulations and of the EU Directive on Energy Efficiency. At the Joint Researcher Centre, he also implemented an interdisciplinary research initiative combining complex systems and social practices approaches for a more sustainable transition to renewable energies. Prior to that, Nicola worked at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), managing international research projects focusing on design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of energy end-use efficiency policies to be implemented by EU Member States to comply with EU Energy Service Directive obligations.
Nicola holds a PhD from University of Milan and a master’s degree from Pisa University (both in elementary particle physics).
Dr Joshua Hughes
Cluster Lead – Law Enforcement and Community Safeguarding
Josh works on EU-funded research projects advising partners on ethical technology research, data protection, and data management. He analyses impacts, risks, and opportunities of emerging security technologies and develops solutions to improve technologies from the ethical, societal, and legal perspectives with a focus on privacy, data protection and human rights. With one eye on innovation, Josh endeavours to create solutions that are useful and valuable beyond research.
Josh leads Trilateral’s contributions to the ROXANNE and INSPECTr projects, oversees Trilateral’s work on the HEROES project, and has also contributed to the PREVISION project.
Josh has a research background in security, conflict, policing, forensic science, technology, international relations, and international law. At Trilateral, he has worked on integrated ethical, societal, and legal impact assessments, implementing Ethics-by-Design and Privacy-by-Design approaches to technologies and organisations, and leads the development of Trilateral’s human rights impact assessment and Human-Rights-by-Design approach.
His PhD thesis developed a novel approach to understanding human control over, and responsibility for, autonomous weapon systems. He has published on regulation of emerging technologies and use of deep learning in the security and defence domains. Josh also holds an LLM in International Law and International Relations, and a BSc (Hons) in Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation. Further, Josh is a IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional - Europe.
Ilaria Bonavita
Lead – Data Science, Research and Sociotech Innovation
Ilaria is responsible for coordinating and developing technical solutions in research projects, mainly in the Horizon research environment (Project STAMINA, COVINFORM, TECHETHOS). Her work involves identifying innovative data science solutions in the Sociotech for Good domain that can advance the insights we provide through our products.
Ilaria holds an MSc. in Mathematical Engineering and a BSc. in Applied Mathematics from the Polytechnic University of Turin. She was a postgraduate researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich within the Marie Curie ITN “Machine Learning for Personalised Medicine” framework during which she investigated machine learning and statistical models of genotype-disease interactions. Before joining Trilateral Research, Ilaria worked as Data Scientist in Eurecat – Technological Centre of Catalonia (Barcelona) where she was involved in the design and development of data-driven solutions for the digital health public and private sector.
She is particularly interested in creating machine learning and statistical models of complex real-life phenomena that account for social and ethical perspectives aimed at enhancing societal wellbeing while controlling for the potential harm implied by inappropriate use of technology.
Dr Agata Gurzawska
Cluster Lead – Ethics, Human Rights and New Technologies
Agata supports the growth of the Innovation & Research service of Trilateral. Specifically, she leads research related to responsible and sustainable innovation, human rights and ethics of technology.
At Trilateral, she provides research-supported regulatory, industry and policy advice on implementing responsible research and innovation (RRI) in numerous EU-funded projects and beyond. She applies ethics- and privacy-by-design approaches and conducts integrated ethical, legal and societal impact assessments with a strong focus on stakeholder engagement. Agata also leads the development of Trilateral’s human rights impact assessment (HRIA) and Human-Rights-by-Design approach. She is particularly keen on shifting from abstract principles of responsible and sustainable innovation to concrete practices and tools, tailor-made to specific types of organisations, local, social, political and environmental contexts.
Agata’s background lies in international public and human rights law. Her areas of expertise and main research interests encompass responsible and sustainable innovation in the business context, ethics of technology, human rights and business, and strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR). Agata holds LL.M from the University of Lodz, and Human Rights and Democratisation specialisation from the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (Venice, Kosovo, Sevilla).
She has excellent expertise in EU funding applications and has led and/or contributed to many successful proposal development efforts in H2020 and Horizon Europe (HE). She has contributed/contributes in various capacities to EU-funded research projects e.g., SATORI, Responsible Industry, SHERPA, PREFET, COPKIT, DARLENE, OPTIMAI, REAL DEAL, TRANSCEND and PREPARED. Agata is also a Project Coordinator (Principal Investigator) of the EU-funded VERITAS project focusing on increasing societal trust in science, research and innovation, and their respective institutions, through a robust eco-system of trust and shared benefits, taking into account environmental and health research.Agata has published articles and book chapters related to responsible and sustainable innovation in e.g., Sustainability Journal, Philosophy of Management and Assessment of Responsible Innovation: Methods and Practices (2021) ed. Yaghmaei & Poel. In her career, she has cooperated with University of Twente (Philosophy Department), 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology, the Danish Institute for Human Rights, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, and the Centre for Business, Organisations & Society (University of Bath).
Dr Nikola Tomić
Cluster Lead – Cybersecurity
He currently leads Trilateral’s contribution to the CYBERSPACE project. Key tasks include developing cross-border working groups with Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and the private sector to discuss cybersecurity issues, mapping cybersecurity policy options in Europe and coordinating dissemination and communication activities for the CYBERSPACE project.
Before joining Trilateral, Nikola coordinated and managed several EU-funded projects on European Union politics and policies, from institutional cooperation and co-design in policymaking to EU security and defence policy and EU crisis management missions. His most recent research has focused on global political justice in the EU’s foreign and security policies, in particular, in international conflict management. In his previous role of European Programme Project Manager, Nikola managed two EU projects in the fields of European craft and design and co-wrote four EU funding applications.
Nikola previously worked at the University College Dublin as a postdoctoral research fellow on EU foreign and security policies. Relying on qualitative methods and elite interviews, his research analysed EU foreign policy decisions to deploy or not to deploy crisis management missions in Syria and Kosovo and assessed the ethical implications of such decisions.
Nikola’s doctoral dissertation investigated the evolution of the EU’s approach to counterpiracy off the coast of Somalia and analysed the decision-making processes to deploy three EU missions to the area. Other research included exploring the role of institutional cooperation in international organisations, in particular, between the EU and NATO in crisis management and defence. Oxford University Press published his textbook on a comparative study of national defence (including cyber-defence) policies in Europe. Nikola has authored and co-edited. several peer-reviewed journal articles and books and lectured at Loughborough University, Nottingham Trent University, Staffordshire University, University College Dublin and The Military College of the Irish Defence Forces.
Dr Leanne Cochrane
Cluster Lead – Crisis & Security
Leanne leads the Crisis and Security cluster and is the scientific coordinator of the TRANSCEND project focused on new methodologies for engaging civil society in security research.
Leanne’s background is in law and human rights, working on research ethics and rule of law issues across the NGO, NHRI, IO and academic sectors prior to joining Trilateral.
She received her PhD and LLB from Queen’s University Belfast and her LLM from Georgetown University, Washington DC. She was admitted to the Bar in 2008 and has been a Fellow with Advance HE since 2018.
Dr David Barnard-Wills
Research Innovation Lead
David works to connect Trilateral’s research with its commercial services, to create sustainable and repeatable pathways from our high-quality research to our sociotech innovation, and to encourage interdisciplinary knowledge sharing across the company.
David is an experienced interdisciplinary research manager. For Trilateral, he has previously led various applied technology development projects, where he contributed policy knowledge, privacy- and ethics-by-design, technology foresight and research data management experience. He has also led research projects on cyber conflict, international collaboration between regulatory authorities, data protection training, and SME experiences with the GDPR. His own research focuses on the politics of information and security technologies.
David has a PhD in the politics of identification systems from the University of Nottingham, and an MA in Political Science with a research methods specialism, and BA in Politics. He has previously been a Research Fellow in the Department of Informatics and Systems Engineering at Cranfield University, the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Birmingham, and the UK’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.
Dr Rowena Rodrigues
Head of Innovation & Research
Rowena co-leads and works to drive the growth of the Innovation & Research services of Trilateral in defined strategic business areas. She carries out legal and policy research related to new technologies and provides regulatory, industry and policy advice.
Rowena’s background lies in research and consultancy in law (including human rights), ethics and impacts of new and emerging technologies (e.g., AI, robotics, human enhancement technologies). She has expertise in various types of impact assessments (privacy, legal, ethical, socio-economic), comparative legal analysis, privacy and data protection (law, policy and practice). She a keen interest in the intersections of ethics and law in relation to new technologies, responsible research and innovation, cybersecurity and law enforcement research. Rowena has a PhD in law and an LLM from the University of Edinburgh.
She co-edited Privacy and Data Protection Seals (TMC Asser/Springer 2018), has published book chapters and articles on a range of topics in Big Data & Society, Computer Law & Security Review, Innovation:The European Journal of Social Science Research, Journal of Contemporary European Research, Journal of Responsible Technology, International Data Privacy Law, International Review of Law, Computers and Technology, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Science and Engineering Ethics. She has excellent expertise in EU funding applications and has led and/or contributed to many successful proposal development efforts in FP7, H2020 and Horizon Europe (10 years+ experience). She has contributed/contributes in various capacities to EU-funded research projects e.g., TECHETHOS, SHERPA, TITANIUM, SIENNA (Deputy Project Coordinator) , SATORI, IRISS, PULSE, EU privacy seals.
Dr Su Anson
Head of Innovation & Research
Su co-leads and works to drive the growth of the Innovation & Research service of Trilateral in defined strategic business areas. She oversees and conducts research in the field of crisis and security.
Su’s areas of expertise include public preparedness and risk communication, including the use of new technologies such as social media and private messaging apps. Her research examines how data and new technologies can provide insights to inform risk communication approaches and community engagement to reduce vulnerability and exclusion.
Su has over 16 years’ experience of designing, leading and contributing to research projects. She has led multiple successful funding applications, managed research teams, and has conducted research internationally with key stakeholders including: emergency management practitioners, UN Agencies, civil society and non-governmental organisations, senior government officials, policy-makers, the public, and fellow researchers. She collaborates with different stakeholders to understand the different challenges faced and works with them to develop solutions and recommendations.
Su has extensive experience of tailoring her research findings and communication to different audiences and has delivered trainings, workshops, webinars, and podcasts, written journal articles, book chapters, white papers, and reports, and presents at conferences.Su was previously a researcher at Aston University working on crisis and security projects. Su has a PhD in Sociology (public preparedness for disasters) and a BSc in Marketing from Aston University.
