Allison Owen has been a PhD candidate at the Complexity Science Hub since March 2026. Her research interests center on behavioral indicators of money launderers and how they integrate the virtual asset industry into established, complex money laundering networks. Within the Digital Currency Ecosystems research group, she explores pattern recognition techniques at the intersection of the virtual asset industry and traditional financial systems.

Allison holds a Master of Arts in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the United States, as well as a Master of Arts in International Affairs from Russia. In her master’s thesis, she developed a risk assessment concept for an export control regime designed to support decisions on where dual-use components could be shipped.

Allison is also pursuing her PhD at TU Vienna. She has published research on virtual asset mining–related financial crime typologies, virtual asset legislation, sectoral virtual asset risk assessments, virtual asset typologies linked to proliferation finance and organized crime, and regulatory challenges in the virtual asset industry.