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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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

RoboCup @ ZDF Fernsehgarten

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.

Published: 29/08/2025

Published: 15/10/2025

New Robots at JGU!

Published: 15/01/2026

I am super excited that I received funding from the Gutenberg Lehrkolleg to start a new RoboCup team as part of my teaching at the Johannes Gutenberg University! Starting this coming summer term, I will teach a first introductory class with a subsequent practical session in the summer break. And from there, we hopefully recruit a group of students that want to compete in Nuremberg in 2027!

In March, I will be attending the RoboCup GermanOpen again. This GermanOpen will be especially interesting because it will be the very first time the new joint Humanoid Soccer League will get to play. I am supporting the local league chair for the tournament. In addition, we are planning to expand our live streaming as a test run for 2027 and this will also be an exciting new area for us to explore. Stay tuned for the live stream announcement!

GermanOpen 2026

Published: 08/02/2026

HRI Area Chair

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.