Name: Ida L. Østerås, Ph.D
Title: Assistant Professor
Office: Kinard 323
E-mail: OesteraasI@winthrop.edu
Education: Ph.D., Criminology and Criminal Justice, Old Dominion, University, Norfolk, VA; M.S., Criminology and Criminal Justice: Transnational Crime and Justice, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ; B.S., in Applied Sociology; Law, Crime, and Social Justice, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
Dr. Ida L. Oesteraas grew up in Norway and moved to the U.S. in 2014 to study and compete in distance running/track at Oklahoma State University. Since then, she has lived in Arizona, Virginia, and currently resides in South Carolina. Her research centers on the intersection of anti-immigrant harm/violence and digital extremism/terrorism.
Dr. Oesteraas’s teaching career is distinguished by her contributions to the School of Cybersecurity at Old Dominion University in Virginia, where she created a Cyber Terrorism course enabling students to analyze how cyberspace intersects with terrorism. At Winthrop University, she instructs a diverse selection of criminal justice and sociology classes, using both face-to-face and online instructional methods. She leads Criminology (SOCL 325), Corrections (SOCL 337), Cyber and Corporate Crime (CRJU 322), and Introduction to Criminal Justice Systems (SOCL 227) in person, giving students the benefit of lively in-class dialogue and collaborative learning. For Social Problems (SOCL 101), she offers both in-person and online options to accommodate varied learning preferences and schedules.
Dedicated to student involvement and engagement, Dr. Oesteraas employs dynamic teaching strategies, including flipped classrooms and student-led Dugnad presentations, which encourage students to dive into selected topics and participate actively in a variety of classroom activities. Beyond her professional life, she enjoys running, art, traveling, and maintaining an active lifestyle through a variety of interests.
Selected Publications and Conference Presentations__________ _____________________
Baker B., Oesteraas, I., Monk-Turner, E., & Young, S. (expected December 2025). Revisiting the Rural Folk Devil: Hillbilly Horror and Harm. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture.
Oesteraas, I. (2025). Criminal Justice and Cybersecurity. In H. Aldabagh, C. Bowman,
Isom, D. A. (Chair), Carter, T. J., Oesteraas, I., Ilchi, O. S., Bray, T. M., & McLeskey,
Whiteness & Crime [Author Meets Critics panel]. Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Annual Meeting, Denver, CO.
Oesteraas, I. (2024, November 13–16). Exploring the White Supremacy to Anti-immigrant Violence Pathway [Conference presentation]. American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA.
Oesteraas, I. (2024, April). The White Supremacy to Anti-immigrant Violence Pathway– Deadly encounters of migrants at the U.S. Southwest Border [Conference presentation]. Graduate Student Government Association Conference, Norfolk, VA.
Oesteraas, I. & Hopkins, D., (2024). Liberating Cyberspace: An Overview of the Effects of Cyberlibertarian
Extremism. Journal of Information Warfare.
Oesteraas, I. (2023). Like Treating the Symptom Rather than the Cause – the Omission of Courses over Terrorism in NSA Designated Institutions. Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice: Vol. 2023: No. 2, Article 8.
Payne, B., Oesteraas, I., May, D., (2023). Cybersecurity and Criminal Justice Students and Implications for Recruiting Students into Government Careers. Journal of Applied Security Research.
Oesteraas, I. (2023, November). Constitutional Sheriffs, Anti-immigration Narratives, and the 287(g) program [Conference presentation]. American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.
Oesteraas, I., & Karahan, S. (2023, May). The Spread of Hate: An overview of factors affecting online content moderation [Conference presentation]. International Security Conference, Las Vegas, NV.
Oesteraas, I. (2022). White Supremacy and the Future of Liberal Democracy–the Case of the Nordic Resistance Movement. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology.