Lianne Lefsrud is Assistant Professor in Chemical and Materials Engineering (Lynch School of Engineering Safety and Risk Management) at the University of Alberta. The objective of her research is to develop methods of determining risk acceptability that can capture its dynamicism, expanding scrutiny, and geographical differentiation. She studies how technological risks that were once considered acceptable - such as drilling offshore, pipelining petroleum, or chlorinating drinking water – have become increasingly criticized on moral and emotional bases, actively opposed by those who do not seem directly affected, and rejected by regulators for political reasons. Lianne uses machine learning and computational linguistics to analyze incident databases and study the discursive construction of climate change, risk management, and scientific and academic fields.