Rate My Professor Zarina Vakhitova

Zarina Vakhitova, PhD, serves as Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Social Sciences within the Faculty of Arts at Monash University. Holding a Doctor of Philosophy in Criminology, her academic career includes prior affiliation with Griffith University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Dr Vakhitova's research centers on the role of technology in facilitating, preventing, and responding to crime. Her work employs routine activity theory to analyze cybercrime victimization, explores the effectiveness of police body-worn cameras in domestic and family violence cases, investigates links between tourism and crime such as burglary from tourist accommodations, and examines self-guardianship strategies against cyber abuse. She collaborates extensively on projects addressing content moderation on social media, cyber fraud policing, and right-wing extremism.

Dr Vakhitova has secured significant funding, including the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) in 2024 for $414,837 on the project 'Harnessing the power of ordinary people to prevent cyber abuse.' Her key publications encompass 'Online Routine Activities and Self-Guardianship against Cyber Abuse' (2022), 'Tourism and Crime: An Exploratory Study of Burglary From Tourist Accommodation on the Gold Coast, Australia' (2022), 'Examining cybercrime victimisation among Turkish women using routine activity theory' (2024), 'Non-significant p-values? Strategies to understand and better communicate their meaning' (2018), and 'Comparing police officers' and domestic violence victims' perspectives on body-worn cameras' (2025). With over 400 citations across 34 publications, her contributions advance environmental criminology, cyber routine activity theory, and technology's impact on crime prevention. She holds an editorial board position with Crime Prevention and Community Safety journal and supervises theses on topics like policing cyber fraud in China.