I have a bit of an unusual situation and I'm unsure of how to handle it.

I had a fellow PhD student from another university as a Facebook friend, we met at a summer school programme a couple years ago but haven't spoken on Facebook at all since the programme ended. Anyway I was having a friends 'clear out' on Facebook and deleted her a while ago. She got in touch and was quite angry with me, and while I was honest and explained my reason, she was quite offensive so in the end I blocked her.

Now she's created another Facebook account and a couple of nights ago I got over 70 messages in one night, slagging me off and telling me what a b**ch I am etc. etc. I'm unsure of how to handle this situation and would appreciate any advice. I see my options as:

-Reporting it to Facebook-but that doesn't stop her from creating new profiles
-Reporting it to the Police-but I only know her name and university, not her address
-Reporting it to her university or department? I am suspecting that as well as harrassing me and causing me distress, she has some kind of problem that she needs to get help for.

I'd probably report it to Facebook in the first case and see if that's an end to it. As well as reporting the abusive messages, it's possible to report people having accounts under different names (a friend of mine used a false name with very good reason, and was hounded by Facebook after someone reported her). Hopefully what happened was a one-off as a result of whatever was going on in her life that night, but I agree with you that there are some unhealthy signs there. If there's any further negative contact from her, I would take it further at that stage.

Sounds rather worrying. I don't know what others think about this, but I think I would even consider making my supervisor aware of the situation. Your supervisor may indeed suggest that you report it to her institution. I would certainly take it seriously and be very careful (!). She could try to damage your reputation, for example (not sure how, but I'm sure she could be creative). That is why I think it would be good to let someone at your institution know sooner rather than later. Hopefully the Facebook reporting will work. Good luck.