Human Centred Security Day 2026

Melanie Knieps is a researcher with a background in psychology who focuses on the social aspects of cybersecurity at the Digital Society Initiative of the University of Zurich. She is leading the "Cyber Resilience Network for the Canton of Zurich" (CYREN ZH), which aims to protect the self-determination of Zurich as a business location and its population by establishing a task force of civilian first responders for the digital space. The project also seeks to strengthen cooperation between various actors in the canton of Zurich and provide new training and education opportunities in the field of cybersecurity.

Melanie is also a postdoctoral researcher in the NRP-77 project "Promoting trust in cybersecurity through ethics and law," which aims to provide valuable data, insights, and recommendations regarding the non-technical aspects of cybersecurity. Her particular interest lies in identifying the factors that can promote knowledge exchange among cybersecurity experts, such as trust and other organizational components.

Cornelia Puhze is an expert For Human Centred Security at Switch. She advises various communities on the human element in information security, from both a strategic and practical perspective. Cornelia is educated to postgraduate level in corporate and political communications and has a background in teaching.

Alexander is the managing director of the company NextBestStep and also teaches part-time at a university of applied sciences. His core focus is the development of sustainable safety cultures in companies, with a primary specialization in the human factor.

After studying at ETH Zurich, Martin Leuthold worked in a number of security functions in Switzerland and abroad, including CISO of a multinational industrial conglomerate. As a member of the Management Board, Martin Leuthold has been Head of the Data, Security and Network Division at Switch since February 2016.

Fabio Gawron studied sociology and theology before doing his master's degree in strategic communications. His interest in how communication constitutes and influences our society accompanied him throughout his studies and brought him to the field of security awareness. He is fascinated by the complex interrelations of security and human behaviour in an increasingly digitalized world. As a security awareness professional he enjoys bridging the demands of IT security professionals with the needs of end users.

Ayşe Nur Asyali is a PhD candidate in the Security, Privacy and Society group. With a masters and bachelor’s in psychology, she currently develops assessment tools to help SMEs evaluate and improve their security culture. Her work focuses on fostering proactive employee behavior to make cybersecurity a natural part of everyday organizational practice.

Mathias Toth is an Information Security Specialist at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), where he is responsible for cybersecurity awareness. Recently, he has also started working independently as a speaker and through “C.A.S.E – Cybersecurity Awareness for Everyone,” with the goal of making cybersecurity accessible and practical for diverse audiences. He also serves on the board of the Swiss Internet Security Alliance (SISA). His work combines technical expertise with a strong human-centric approach, guided by the principle: «cybersecurity is more than just technology».

Ann was a student of English and History whose e-mail didn’t work. Learning what was behind a broken email system was one of the steps on a journey that took her into a 25 year engineering and leadership career in IT infrastructure and operations. She has worked on networks, trust and identity services, clouds and infrastructure. She will also talk to anyone willing to listen about what is happening to our brains during incident management.

Annika holds a PhD in Economics and Social Sciences from the Leuphana University Lüneburg (Germany). She is a digital ethnographer studying the social dimensions of decentralised technologies, focusing on blockchain, crypto finance, and the ways in which these digital infrastructures reconfigure trust and our social relations. She is currently a senior researcher in the Scam Research and Prevention Initiative at the Human-IST, University of Fribourg.

Mark Drenhaus holds a PhD from the Faculty of Law of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He works at the Human-IST (University of Fribourg), an institute dedicated to interdisciplinary research and training in Human-Centered Digitalisation and Human-Machine Interaction. He researches on digital law and LegalTech. His research is informed by social systems theory and includes subjects such as digital constitutional law as well as the Scam Research and Prevention Initiative.

After spending ten years in consultancy, Katrin Sprenger met the founders of Silenccio shortly after they had received an award for their algorithm designed to combat hate speech. She was immediately fascinated by their vision of developing cybersecurity prevention services that are accessible to all, regardless of their expertise or financial resources. She joined the start-up in 2019, and has been at the helm of the growing team and its expanding range of services ever since.

Prior to joining Silenccio as Head of Customer Care, Delia Moore held leadership positions in developing and managing customer service departments at Salt, Helsana and Vorwerk. She also spent several years providing personal coaching. Her many interactions with private clients have given her valuable insights into different personalities and challenging life situations, equipping her to support cybercrime victims empathetically and with tailored advice.