Dr. Anna Abalkina (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1469-4907) is a research fellow at Freie Universität Berlin specialized in academic corruption, including plagiarism, paper mills, and hijacked journals. Originally trained in international economics, she shifted her focus to investigating scientific misconduct and its systemic consequences. Since 2013, she has collaborated with Dissernet to expose academic fraud in Russia and has identified over 1,000 suspicious papers linked to fraudulent publishing practices. She co-developed the “Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker” to help researchers detect scam journals. In recognition of her impact, Nature named her one of ten people who shaped science in 2024.