Dr. Padda is an award-winning researcher, writer, and educator.
She is currently a SSHRC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award Fellow at the University of Toronto and holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Waterloo. She was previously a CIGI Digital Policy Hub Postdoctoral Fellow, supported through the Mitacs Accelerate program. Her doctoral research was supported and recognized through the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the P.E.O. International Scholar Award, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Emerging Scholar Award.
Her research examines online radicalization, digital extremism, misogyny, and online harms. Using mixed and computational methods, she studies how harmful ideas and communities develop across digital spaces, how gender shapes extremist narratives and violence, and how artificial intelligence, automated content moderation, platform governance, and other emerging technologies shape contemporary forms of online harm.
She is also committed to teaching, mentorship, and making research accessible and useful across academic, policy, and public settings.
Research Interest
Radicalization | Extremists' Use of the Internet | Artificial Intelligence | Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism | Gender-Based Violence | Open-source intelligence | Research Methods and Methodology | Computational Social Science.
