Dr Baker's PhD, ‘Infrastructures of Male Supremacism: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Incel Wiki’ combined digital affordances and discursive psychology perspectives to explain how the Incel wiki functions as a rhetorical tool to inoculate misogynist Incels against criticism while simultaneously reinforcing ingroup identity and semantic control.
She shows how pseudo-science functions as a particularly important, and previously under-researched, rhetorical strategy of extreme misogyny, and positions biological determinism as a central organising logic of male supremacism.
Dr Baker also holds a First Class Honours Degree in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin, where she also worked as a research assistant in the Trinity Institute of Neuroscience. Her research was funded by the Online Civic Culture Centre (O3C).
Dr Baker has been appointed to a postdoctoral research position in Dublin City University’s Anti-Bullying Centre (ABC). ABC is one of Ireland's national university designated research centres and is located in DCU’s Institute of Education. It is known globally for its interdisciplinary research on bullying and online safety. Catherine will be working on an EU-funded project on gender, violence, and education.
Her PhD was supervised by Professor Andrew Chadwick, Professor Tom Jackson, Professor Line Nyhagen, and Dr Cristian Tileaga.