Professor Cassandra Cross
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Justice
Biography
Dr Cassandra Cross is currently Associate Dean (Learning & Teaching), Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice. She also holds a position as Professor in the School of Justice, QUT. In 2021, she completed a Senior Research Fellowship, with the Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) on the topic of romance fraud. Previously, Dr Cross worked as a research/policy officer with the Queensland Police Service, where she commenced research on the topic of online fraud and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2011. Since taking up her position at QUT in 2012, she has published in this area across several journals and continued her research into online fraud focusing across the prevention, victim support and policing aspects of this crime. She has received over AUD $1.5 million in grants and industry funding to further this work. She is co-author (with Professor Mark Button) of the book entitled “Cyber frauds, scams, and their victims”, which was published by Routledge in 2017. Research interests:- Fraud (policing, prevention and victim support)
- Identity crime
- Data breaches
- Cybercrime
- Discourses on victim blaming
- Crime prevention
- Policing
Personal details
Positions
- Professor
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Justice
Keywords
Online fraud, Cybercrime, Romance fraud, Policing, Victimisation, Crime Prevention, QUT Centre for Justice
Research field
Criminology
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy (Queensland University of Technology)
- Bachelor of Justice (Honours) (Queensland University of Technology)
- Bachelor of Arts (Justice Studies) with Distinction (Queensland University of Technology)
Professional memberships and associations
- Chairperson, PCYC Queensland
- Member, Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology
- Member, Australian Information Security Association
Teaching
Dr Cross is currently not teaching, but provides guest lectures across the topics of fraud, cybercrime and policing.
Publications
- Cross, C., (2020). Romance fraud. In TJ. Holt & A. Bossler (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of International Cybercrime and Cyberdeviance (pp. 1–22). Palgrave Macmillan. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/200619
- Cross, C., (2020). 'Oh we can't actually do anything about that': The problematic nature of jurisdiction for online fraud victims. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 20(3), 358–375. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/127517
- Cross, C. & Gillett, R. (2020). Exploiting trust for financial gain: An overview of business email compromise (BEC) fraud. Journal of Financial Crime, 27(3), 871–884. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/200621
- Cross, C., (2020). Reflections on the reporting of fraud in Australia. Policing, 43(1), 49–61. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/135582
- Cross, C., (2019). Online fraud. Oxford research encyclopedia of criminology, 1–32. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/127162
- Cross, C., Dragiewicz, M. & Richards, K. (2018). Understanding romance fraud: Insights from domestic violence research. British Journal of Criminology, 58(6), 1303–1322. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/118434
- Cross, C., (2018). Victims' motivations for reporting to the 'fraud justice network'. Police Practice and Research, 19(6), 550–564. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/122426
- Button, M. & Cross, C. (2017). Cyber frauds, scams and their victims. Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/107452
- Cross, C. & Kelly, M. (2016). The problem of 'white noise': examining current prevention approaches to online fraud. Journal of Financial Crime, 23(4), 806–818. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/102368
- Cross, C., (2015). No laughing matter: Blaming the victim of online fraud. International Review of Victimology, 21(1), 187–204. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/83702
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Cassandra, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Awards
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2020
- Details
- I received the Emerald Literati Award for "Most Outstanding Paper" for the article entitled: Is online fraud just fraud? Examining the efficacy of the digital divide. Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice 5(2): 120-131. Doi: 10.1108/JCRPP-01-2019-0008.
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2020
- Details
- I was elected to the role of Chairperson, Board of Directors, Police Citizen's Youth Club (PCYC) Queensland. I am the first female to be elected into this position in the organisation's 70+ year history.
- Type
- Fellowships
- Reference year
- 2019
- Details
- I was appointed to the position of Senior Research Fellow, in the Law and Policy Theme of the Cybersecurity CRC. This fellowship enables me to complete a project targeted at better understanding the complex dynamics of romance fraud.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2019
- Details
- I was the recipient of the Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in the category of Partnerships and Engagement for "forging transdisciplinary research partnerships and enhancing engagement within and beyond the QUT community".
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2018
- Details
- I was elected by members of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology to the position of Queensland representative for the Society.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2017
- Details
- I received a Highly Commended for the Emerald Literati Awards. Each year, Emerald recognises outstanding papers that have been published within their journals. The awards are determined by the editorial board of the journal across all of the papers that have been published during the previous year. I was awarded a Highly Commended citation based on the following article:Cross, C. and Kelly, M. (2016) The problem of "white noise": Examining current prevention approaches to online fraud. Journal of Financial Crime 23(4) 23(4): 806-828.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2017
- Details
- I received the Adam Sutton Crime Prevention Award. The award is given annually to an author who has written the best publication in the area of crime prevention. My award was for the following article: Cross, C. (2016) Using financial intelligence to target online fraud victimisation: Applying a tertiary prevention perspective. Criminal Justice Studies 29(2): 125-142.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2017
- Details
- I was nominated by the Law Faculty for a Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in recognition of exceptional sustained performance and outstanding achievement across the two categories of research, and partnership and engagement.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2017
- Details
- I received the New Scholar Prize. This award is given to the best publication in criminology by a member of the Society who qualifies as an early career researcher. My award was for the following article:Cross, C. (2016) They're very lonely: Understanding the fraud victimisation of seniors. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 5(4): 60-75.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- I received a QUT Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research.