Research Topics

Human-Robot Interaction ● Artificial Intelligence ● Dialogue Systems ●
User Experience Research ● Human-In-The-Loop Interaction Design

About me

I'm an Independent Research Consultant working with Start-Ups and established companies to help them integrate research-based insights into their AI and robotics development strategies. Until September of last year, I was an Associate Research Scientist at Disney Research Imagineering where I researched how humans interact with AI characters. I received my PhD from Uppsala University, Sweden, in Computer Science with a Specialization in Human-Computer Interaction in October 2020 and did a PostDoc at the colab Potsdam (University of Potsdam, Germany) before joining Disney.

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Citations

Publications

500+

Years of research and teaching experience

Originally I studied Computer Science at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and focused on both humanoid robotics and conversational interaction. I wrote my Master thesis in cooperation with the University of Southern California on building an incremental dialogue system. Apart from Human-Robot Interaction, my heart belongs to the RoboCup community. Since 2011 I'm involved in the RoboCup Humanoid League, first as one of the founders of the team Hamburg Bit-Bots and since 2015, I'm actively engaged in the RoboCup Organization. Since 2023, I am serving on the board of Trustees of the RoboCup Federation.

News

New position at JGU Mainz!

I just started a new position as a lecturer (Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgaben) at the the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz!

As the title suggest, I my position will be mostly focused on teaching. However, I am also super excited to expand my research on human-agent interaction and user experience with AI systems again.

Published: 01/07/2025

Published: 22/07/2025

RoboCup @ ZDF Fernsehgarten

Published: 29/08/2025

I will be a guest at the ZDF Fernsehgarten, a German TV show with millions of viewers every week! I will be joined by RoboCup teams from Berlin, Bremen, Dortmund, Leipzig and Aachen to showcase our RoboCup research. Join us on Sunday and see how our robots can play soccer and rescue humans in disaster scenarios and why events like RoboCup are so important for the research community.

This is the first year that I was asked to join the Program Committee for the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) conference as an Area Chair. The conference has the theme "HRI Empowering Society" - something that is very core to my own heart as well. I can't wait to have a look at and discuss the many great papers that will be submitted to the HRI Studies track and shape next year's conference in Edinburgh.

HRI Area Chair

Published: 15/10/2025

General Chair for RoboCup 2027

It is with great excitement that I can report that we won the bid to host the RoboCup world championship 2027 in Nuremberg, Germany! Together with Oskar von Stryk, I will serve as a General Co-Chair for the event. I can't wait to make RoboCup 2027 one of the largest, most sustainable and most inclusive RoboCup events of all times!