UCC Bystander Intervention Conference

Happening On 03/02/2026

UCC Bystander Intervention annual conference - celebrating 10 years of programme delivery.

We would like to invite you to attend our Bystander Conference on 3rd February in the Dora Allman room, Student Hub on campus at UCC from 10.30-12.30 where the groundbreaking work of internationally recognised researchers on the challenging issues of pornography and AI generated explicit images will be shared.

10.30am - 10.40am: Conference Opening by President John O'Halloran

10.40am - 11.10am: UCC Bystander Intervention Director, Professor Louise Crowley

11.10am - 11.55am Keynote: Ruth Breslin, Director SERP -  “Understanding the role of pornography in the perpetration of gender-based violence”

11.55 am - 12.25: Dr Gillian Murphy and John Twomey, UCC School of Psychology - "World-first tool reduces harmful engagement with AI-generated explicit images"

12.25 -12.30:  Closing

Speaker Bios: 

Ruth Breslin – Director of The Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy Institute (The SERP Institute, Ireland)

Ruth has over twenty-five years of research experience in both NGO and academic settings in Dublin, London and New York. She has an MSc in Social Research Methods (Social Policy) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. The focus of Ruth’s work has been efforts to tackle and prevent violence against women and girls, and she has developed particular expertise in research and policy development on issues of commercial sexual exploitation. Ruth is regularly called upon to input into the development of evidence-based policy, legislation and practice in this regard, in both Ireland and internationally. Ruth joined the SERP research programme in University College Dublin in 2018. She is the lead or co-author of all of SERP’s studies. Ruth’s work strives to bridge the gap between academia and frontline practice in generating new knowledge, insights and solutions on issues of commercial sexual exploitation in Ireland and beyond. Ruth is now leading the development of the newly independent SERP Institute and the delivery of its strategic plan.

Dr. Gillian Murphy

Dr Gillian Murphy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Psychology, UCC. She is a cognitive psychologist with particular interest in misinformation and memory distortion. She also studies the intersection of cognition and technology and is a Funded Investigator at Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software.

 John Twomey, PhD Student

John Twomey is a PhD student in the School of Applied Psychology, UCC. His thesis investigated sociotechnical concerns around deepfake technology, including use in wartime misinformation and in the censorship of political dissidents. The bulk of John's doctoral work examined the use of deepfakes in the creation of non-consensual synthetic intimate imagery, culminating in the design of an effective intervention to curb deepfake abuse perpetration.

Register for the Conference here: 

UCC Bystander Intervention Conference 2026