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Biography

I'm originally from Munich, Germany where I was born and raised. Currently I'm an Assistant Professor of Computer Science (tenure-track) at ETH Zurich. I lead the AIT lab affiliated with the Institute of Pervasive Computing and the Institute of Visual Computing. Prior to joining ETH I was Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge, in the I3D group(2010-2013). I was awarded a Diplom (equiv. MSc) in Computer Science from Technische Universität München, Germany (Summa Cum Laude 2004) and my PhD in Computer Science from LMU München, Germany (Summa Cum Laude 2009). Following my studies, I spent two years as a postdoc at Microsoft Research Cambridge (2010-2012).

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Research Interests

My research interests are centered around the computational aspects of Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). As technologies shift computing away from the desktop, it is becoming increasingly clear that traditional means of interaction need to be replaced or complemented with new forms of input and output. My main objective is to push the boundaries of what humans can do with computers and how they interact with them.

Concretely, I am interested in machine perception of human activity, including pose estimation, gesture recognition and other forms of input sensing. Furthermore, I am interested in algorithms that can extract high-level concepts such as style and semantic meaning from observations of human activities and algorithms that continously update individualised user models (based on such data). Finally, we investigate how mathematical optimization techniques can be used to synthesize and optimize user interfaces, at design- and run-time. For example, finding optimal parametrizations of sensor-based interactive devices for a given input task or finding optimized ways to display information given the systems current best believe about the user's intention, attention and other states.

I'm interested in many different application domains such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, Human Robot Interaction and Smart Environments and more. We work in diverse areas including HCI, robotics, computer vision and computer graphics as well as in applied machine learning and numerical optimization.

Academic and Professional Activities

Grants

• ERC Starting Grant: "OPTINT: Optimization-based Design of Interactive Technologies". 2017-2021
• Microsoft Research Swiss JRC Grant: "Human-Centric-Flight II: End-user Design of High-level Robotic Behavior". 2017-2019
• SNF Grant: "Deformation and Motion Modeling using Modular, Sensor-based Input Devices". 2015-2018
• Google Inc. Sponsored Research Agreement: "Recognition Algorithms Using High-Speed, Wide Field-of-View, Short Range Sensors for Mobile and Wearable Computing". 2014-2016.
• SNF Grant: "UFO: Semi-Autonomous Aerial Vehicles for Augmented Reality, Human-Computer Interaction and Remote Collaboration" (200021L_153644). 2015-2018
• Microsoft Research Swiss JRC Grant: "Human-Centric Flight: Micro Aerial Vehicles for Interaction, Videography and 3D Reconstruction". 2014-2017

Technical Program Comittee Member

• ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI '17)
• ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST '16)
• ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI '16)
• ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI '15)
• ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST '14)
• ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI '14)
• ACM Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (ACM TEI '14)
• ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST '13)
• ACM SIGCHI Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (ACM MUM '13)
• ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI '13)
• ACM Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp '13)
• IEEE Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (IEEE Ismar '13)
• IEEE Joint 3DIM/3DPVT Conference (IEEE 3DV '13)
• IEEE Joint 3DIM/3DPVT Conference (IEEE 3DIMPVT '12)
• ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST '12)
• ACM Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ACM ITS '10)
• ACM Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (ACM TEI '09)

Organizing Comittee Member

• Keynote Chair, ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST '14)
• Keynote Chair, ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST '13)
• Video Co-Chair, ACM Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp '13))
• Demonstrations Co-Chair, ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST '10 & '11)
• Student Volunteer Chair, ACM Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ACM ITS '08 & '09)

Reviewing

I routinely review paper for ACM CHI, UIST, ITS, TEI, Ubicomp, IEEE ISMAR, 3DV as well as for many journal publications.

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Selected Publications

Please see our full publications list. Also check Google Scholar, DBLP or the ACM DL.