Associate Professor Nicola Henry

Nicola is a socio-legal scholar with over 20 years’ research experience in the sexual violence field. Her research investigates the extent, nature and impacts of sexual violence and harassment, including legal and prevention responses in Australian and international contexts. Her research on technology-facilitated sexual violence and image-based sexual abuse (colloquially known as "revenge porn") has had a significant impact on law, policy and educational reform, including legislative change in multiple Australian jurisdictions. She is a Member of the RMIT Women's Research Network and an International Editorial Member for Violence Against Women and the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. She is also Research Associate at West Virginia University.

Nicola's books include: War and Rape: Law, Memory and Justice (2011: Routledge); Preventing Sexual Violence: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Overcoming a Rape Culture (2014: Palgrave Macmillan; co-edited with A. Powell); Rape Justice: Beyond the Criminal Law (2015: Palgrave Macmillan; co-edited with A. Powell & A. Flynn); Sexual Violence in a Digital Age (2017: Palgrave Macmillan; co-authored with A. Powell); Image-Based Sexual Abuse: A Study of the Causes and Consequences of Non-Consensual Nude or Sexual Imagery (2020: Routledge; co-authored with C. McGlynn, A. Flynn, K. Johnson, A. Powell & A. Scott); and Technology-Facilitated Violence and Abuse (2021: Emerald; co-edited with J. Bailey & A. Flynn).

Nicola is currently Lead Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery project on image-based sexual abuse. She is a Chief Investigator on a Department of Premier and Cabinet project on sexual violence and harassment on public transport (led by Prof Taft, La Trobe University) and a Department of Social Services project on primary prevention and sexual violence (led by Dr Hooker, La Trobe University). She is a Chief Investigator on a Criminology Research Grant on anonymous and confidential reporting platforms for sexual assault survivors (led by A/Prof Heydon, RMIT University) and a Partner Investigator on a pilot project on access to justice, COVID-19 and newly arrived communities (led by A/Prof Balint, Melbourne University). Nicola was previously Chief Investigator on two other Criminology Research Grants, an ARC Discovery project and four commissioned research projects for the Office of the eSafety Commissioner.

Nicola will commence her ARC Future Fellowship on digital platforms and image-based sexual abuse in early 2021.

Nicola has conducted research on image-based sexual abuse and technology-facilitated abuse for the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner. Since 2017, Nicola has been a member of the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Committee. She provided expert advice on the development of the eSafety Office’s world-first image-based abuse portal and their award-winning eSafety Women: Online Training for Frontline Workers. Since 2018, Nicola has provided expert advice to Facebook in relation to their policies on image-based abuse. She was previously a Member of the Advisory Board for the Gender Equity Victoria Online Bystander Project and Expert Advisor to Epigeum (Oxford University Press) in the development of their online sexual violence course, Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence.