Bryce Westlake, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Ph.D., Simon Fraser University; Burnaby, British Columbia
Contact Information:
Email: bryce.westlake@sjsu.edu
Phone: 408-924-2743
Office: HB 210B
Spring 2025 Office Hours: TBA
About Dr. Bryce Westlake
Dr. Bryce Westlake completed his Ph.D. in Criminology from Simon Fraser University, Canada. Dr. Westlake is an associate professor in the Department of Justice Studies and a faculty member of the department’s Forensic Science program. He developed and leads the program’s digital evidence concentration and is constructing the . Located near 91ÁÔÆæ, this laboratory will provide students with valuable practical, hands-on experience through year-long internships. In collaboration with criminal justice agencies, students will process digital evidence from active criminal cases to decrease the backlog.
In collaboration with an international team of researchers, including law enforcement agencies and government partnerships, Dr. Westlake’s primary research focuses on developing automated tools to combat the distribution of child sexual abuse material (i.e., child pornography) online. Dr. Westlake is also engaged in a multi-phasic study examining health and safety within BDSM communities. This research aims to destigmatize participation through a deeper understanding of the social and emotional enrichment that practitioners receive from activities.
Areas of Interest:
- Computer/Digital Forensics
- Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Material
- BDSM
- Cybercrime
- Social Network Analysis
Selected Recent Publications
Westlake, B., Brewer, R., Swearingen, T., Ross, A., Patterson, S., Michalski, D., Hole, M., Logos, K., Frank, R., Bright, D., & Afana, E. (2022). Developing automated methods to detect and match face and voice biometrics in child sexual abuse videos. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 648, 1-15.
Guerra, E., & Westlake, B. G. (2021). Detecting child sexual abuse images: Traits of child sexual exploitation hosting and displaying websites. Child Abuse & Neglect, 122, 105336.
Brewer, R., Westlake, B., Hart, T., & Arauza, O. (2021). The ethics of web crawling and web scraping in criminological research: Navigating issues of consent, privacy and other potential harms associated with automated data collection. In A. Lavorgna & T. Holt (Eds.), Researching cybercrimes (pp.435-456). Palgrave Macmillian: Cham.
Westlake, B. G. (2020). The past, present, and future of online child sexual exploitation: Summarizing the evolution of production, distribution, and detection. In T. Holt & A. Bossler (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of international cybercrime and cyberdeviance (pp.1225-1253). Palgrave Macmillian, Cham. doi:
Westlake, B.G. (2018) Delineating victims from perpetrators: Prosecuting self-produced child pornography in Youth Criminal Justice Systems. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 12(1), pp. 248-261. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.495776.
Westlake, B.G., & Frank, R. (2017). Seeing the forest through the trees: Identifying key players in online child sexual exploitation distribution networks. In T. Holt (Ed.), Interdisciplinary Research on Cybercrime (pp.189-209). New York: Routledge
