I am the Co-Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Prevention (LBI-DHP) in Salzburg, Austria and also lead the LBI-DHP research groups on digital health interventions and data analytics, user modeling, and personalization as a Principal Investigator. Prior to this appointment I was a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Digital Health at Open Lab and the School of Computing at Newcastle University in the UK after having spent one year as a UC Berkeley postdoc visiting research scholar at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI). Building on my background in interaction design, digital health, adaptive systems, serious games, playful interaction, machine learning, human computation and visual effects, I am a nationally and internationally recognized human-computer interaction (HCI) researcher with particular practically applied experience in digital health, personalization, prevention, and physical activity.
To me, HCI is critical for understanding how digital technologies can best serve individual users and the society at large. Currently this crucially includes recent impactful developments in deep learning, generative AI and foundation models, such as LLMs. While such models show great promise in many application areas, much remains to be understood about their most effective and equitable integration in wider digital workflows which permeate our daily living. At the same time, HCI research and development plays an active role in facilitating positive technology development and change. To this end, research must get involved broadly with relevant stakeholders, including individuals, companies, and public institutions. I apply these principles in my work with a passion for applications around health and education, as well as the interaction with adaptive and learning systems and their underlying data. This leads me to pursue a research agenda with a focus on human-AI interaction and research automation in digital health.
My background is originally in Digital Media, a subject aiming at educating leading professionals who can work simultaneously as contributors and mediators in the interplay of computer science and design. The highly selective programme was offered as an international (English language) BSc and MSc and in the post-graduate stage, it encompasses more in-depth studies on psychology, human factors, and cognitive science, resembling a modern human-computer interaction program. During my MSc studies I grew certain of my interest in pursuing a career as an academic, which has since resulted in a PhD / Dr.-Ing. on the topic of Human-Computer Interaction with Adaptable & Adaptive Motion-based Games for Health. My thesis work focused on interaction with adaptive and learning systems through the personalization of exergames designed for use in physiotherapy, rehabilitation, and prevention. I defended my thesis with highest honors (summa cum laude). In addition to my thesis, which was selected as the top thesis in computer science at the University of Bremen in 2016 and was thereby nominated for the yearly thesis award (Dissertationspreis) of the German computer science society (GI), the impact of my academic work is further underlined by a strong publication record, including many high impact international venues and award-winning works, particularly in the field of HCI, including the CHI conference series.
I was then able to move to the International Computer Science Institute as a postdoc on a DAAD-funded fellowship specific to UC Berkeley, focusing on digital education as a purposeful break from my prior work on digital health in order to retain a broad scope of application areas. I was also able to actively explore the process of founding research-based not-for-profit as well as for-profit start-ups (in the special context of the Bay Area / Silicon Valley). While I am convinced that publicly funded research should always aim to publish all results and outcomes (including e.g. software / applications) as openly as possible (following FAIR principles), I am also keen to pursue opportunities in situations where businesses or charitable organizations provide the highest probability of succeeding in further developing great ideas or initial developments from research.
More than 90% of my 100+ peer-reviewed publications are written in English and I regularly publish at internationally recognised top-tier research venues (e.g. CHI and CSCW for the field of human-computer interaction). This included recently being the shared #2 global most published author at CHI2020 (which is widely considered as the highest ranking HCI publishing venue). Furthermore, I contribute as a regular reviewer, program committee member and (co-)organiser to international research events and publications, including various ACM conferences, Frontiers in Digital Health, Else-vier Entertainment Computing, and more. I have reviewed grant proposals for international research funding bodies, such as EPSRC, UKRI and SNSF.
In my current position at the LBI-DHP, I share responsibility for all 28 staff (plus 7 affiliated members) at the institute and am the direct line manager to 11 postdoctoral and PhD researchers. At Open Lab, I enjoyed the responsibility of leading the group for digital health (consisting of 2 post-docs, 2 research software engineers and 9 PhD/postgraduate researchers) that encompassed several research projects, including exploring the use of digital tools for older adult wellbeing / community making, digital legacy research, supporting care work processes in domestic violence and youth care transitions at times of vulnerability, sexual health education, nutrition and diet intentions support tools, and more. Notable funded projects in which I led work areas include IDEA-FAST (IMI2/H2020; ~€21M total funded project volume) and the Centre for Digital Citizens (EPSRC-funded; ~£3.8M total project volume), whilst most recently funded efforts include the Modular Open Research Platform (MORE) for Digital Health (Salzburg WISS2025; ~€300k total project volume), KlimaFIT (Active Mobility, Climate Change & Rehabilitation Digital Pathways to Heat Resilience; FFG funded; ~€575k total project volume) and Digi:Green (Green & Digital Prevention and Rehabilitation; Salzburg WISS/ITG funded; ~€646k total project volume). Seeking to make best use of the potential for real-world impact stemming from research and innovation in HCI and particularly in the application area of digital health, I make successful efforts to enable clinical trials or pilots to generate most reliable evidence around digital health technologies (five RCTs over the last three years), whilst keeping balance with innovative digital technologies research and ideation based on both theory-driven and interaction design enabled approaches.
Cherishing curiosity, cooperation, diversity, as well as mutual learning and exchange, I have multiple years of experience of working, studying and teaching abroad including the USA, Thailand, France, Canada, England, and Austria and I have been awarded with long-term stipends/fellowships by the ASEM-DUO program, the Klaus Tschira Foundation (KTS), and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Most recently I was honored to receive recognition through the 2023 LExA: Leadership Excellence Award in Research, an internationally juried Austrian-wide award competition being presented with a third-place award by the Austrian Federal Minister for Education, Science and Research Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Polaschek. I also worked pro bono as a leading board member at Mooqita.org, a California 501{c}{3} non-profit organization located in Berkeley with the mission of bringing education and work closer together from 2017 to 2023, and I am a long-term member of multiple professional organizations in computing, including the ACM, GI, and AGI.