Noëlle Van der Waag-Cowling

Noëlle Van der Waag-Cowling is a Strategy Associate at the Cyber Security Institute and Research Fellow at the School for Data and Computational Sciences at Stellenbosch University. She is also programme Lead at the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership (SIGLA), Stellenbosch University. Her work cuts across both the public and private sectors and has a strong focus on risk, policy and geo-strategic threats in information security.

She is a member of the review board of the International Journal of Cyber Warfare and Terrorism as well as the Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa. She served as a member of the Group of Global Experts to the International Committee of the Red Cross on the protection of civilians during cyberwarfare in 2020 and on the protection of Humanitarian data in 2022.

Noëlle is passionate about tech innovation in Africa and building cyber capacity on the Continent. She has featured in the Top 50 Women in Cyber in Africa and ‘Deloitte’s Women in Cyber’. Noëlle is also an affiliate member of the University of Canberra’s National Security Hub and served as research co-chair for the Carnegie Endowment’s Project for Cybersecurity, Capacity-Building, and Financial Inclusion.