Curriculum Vitae

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Professional Experience

Manager & Principal Research Staff Member, Cognitive User Experience Lab (CUE)
IBM T.J. Watson Research, Cambridge, MA
2015 – present

Research Manager,  Data Science User Experience (DUX)
 IBM T.J. Watson Research, Cambridge, MA
2011 – 2015

Research Staff Member, Social Software Group
IBM T.J. Watson Research, Cambridge, MA
2002 – 2010

Post-Doc, Collaboration Architecture Team
IBM T.J. Watson Research, Hawthorne, NY
2000 – 2001

Research Scientist
Department for Applied Computer Science IV
University of Mannheim, Germany
1995 – 2000

Summer Intern
Institut Eurécom, Sophia-Antipolis, France
1994

Research Assistant
Department for Applied Computer Science IV
University of Mannheim, Germany
1993 – 1994

Summer Intern
F. Deininger GmbH, Mannheim, Germany,
1991

Contract Programmer
Computer Center GmbH, Mannheim, Germany
1989 – 1993

Financial Consultant
BfG Bank AG, Mannheim, Germany
1989

Education

Ph.D. Computer Science
University of Mannheim, Germany
1995 – 1999

Dissertation (in German): “The digital lecture board – Concept, Design, and Implementation of a Whiteboard for Synchronous Teleteaching”

M.S. Computer Science & Business Administration (IT)
University of Mannheim, Germany, Top 1%
1990 – 1995

Master’s Thesis at Institut Eurécom, France: “Stream Synchronization in a Scalable Video Server Array“

Bank Trainee Program
BfG Bank AG, Mannheim, Germany
1987 – 1989

High School Diploma
Lieselotte-Gymnasium, Mannheim, Germany
1978 – 1987

Skills

Management

  • Hiring, mentoring, and managing technical teams
  • Cross-division management of funding programs and research agendas
  • Project management from concept brainstorming through technical deployment
  • Strategy and idea generation

Technical Skills

  • Web App Dev : Java, J2EE, HTML, HTTP, Javascript, jquery, CSS, XML, SQL, Hibernate, MyBatis, Postgres, DB2
  • Desktop App Dev : Java, SWT, JFACE, Swing, Eclipse-based Applications
  • Design: Fireworks, Photoshop, PowerPoint
  • Data Analysis: Excel, SQL, Statistical Inference, Machine Learning
  • Less recent experience (alphabetic order): Basic, C / C++, COBOL, Estelle, Gauss, Pascal, IP Multicast, RTP / RTCP, SIP, SPSS, Tcl/Tk, TCP, UDP, Visual Studio

Design

  • Concept generation
  • Storyboarding, Personas
  • Wireframes, Rapid prototyping

User Research

  • Qualitative and quantitative research
  • Experimental design (A-B testing)
  • Semi-structured interviewing

Foreign Languages

  • German: native
  • English: fluent written and spoken
  • French: good knowledge
  • Italian: basic knowledge

Selected Invited Talks

  • “Cognitive Computing Research,” Invited Talk, MIT Sloan Cognitive Hackathon, Sep 2016
  • “The Social Workforce at IBM – A Research Perspective on Building a Social Business,” Guest Lecture, University of Maryland, November 2013
  • “Social Business 2.0 – From a Social to a Smarter Workforce”
    Panelist, IBM Research Colloquium, Madrid, Spain, Oct 2013
  • “Exploring the Future at the IBM research Center for Social Business,” Keynote, DNUG Spring Conference Jun 2012, Dortmund, Germany
  • “Social Recommender Systems – An HCI Perspective,” Keynote, ACM RecSys Workshop on Recommender Systems and the Social Web, Oct 2011
  • “Fuelling the Social Web with Recommender Systems,” Invited Seminar, University College Dublin, Oct 2009

Selected Popular Press

My projects have been  covered in popular press, including BusinessWeek, CNN Money, and Discover Magazine.

Publications

I am author / coauthor of 70+ scholary articles with more than 3,874 citations on Google Scholar. For details, check out my publications page.

Patents

I am author / coauthor of 25+ patents. For details, check out my patents page.

Awards and Scholarships

  • IBM Outstanding Technical Accomplishment Award on Social Recommender Systems, 2017
  • 8th IBM Patent Plateau Award, 2015
  • IBM Science Accomplishment Award on Social Recommender Systems, 2013
  • ACM RecSys Best Paper Award, 2010
  • IBM Performance Award, 2009
  • IBM Research Accomplishhment Award (Lotus Connections), 2009
  • IBM Outstanding Innovation Award, 2007
  • IBM Leadership Excellence Program, 2005
  • IBM Performance Award, 2005
  • AACE Best Paper Award, World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 1998
  • IEEE Outstanding Paper Award, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems 1996
  • Research scholarship granted by IBM Research Heidelberg, Germany, and the Ministry of Science and Education of Baden Württemberg, 1996 – 1998
  • Met the requirements for high school scholarships for gifted students funded by the German Ministry of Science and Education, 1985

Teaching and Tutoring

Summer Intern Mentor
IBM Research, USA
2000 – present

      • Mikhil Masli,
        University of Minnesota, now with IBM CHQ Workforce Analytics
      • Hyungil Ahn
        MIT Media Lab, now with Noodle.ai, before GE & IBM Research Almaden
      • Jilin Chen
        University of Minnesota, now with Google Research, before with IBM Research
      • Pavan Vatturi
        Oregon State University, now with Mentor Graphics
      • Lida Li
        Oregon State University, now with Pinterest, before with Microsoft
      • Jianqiang Shen
        Oregon State University, now with Turn, before with PARC
      • Shilad Sen
        University of Minnesota, now professor at Macalester College
      • Roberto Silva Filho
        University of California Irvine, now with GE Global Research
      • Andrew Witt
        Harvard University School of Design, now Founder and Director of Geometry Lab @ Harvard GSD, before Director of Research at Gehry Technologies, Los Angeles
      • Juergen Vogel
        University of Mannheim, Germany, now professor at Bern University of Applied Sciences
      • Heather Richter
        Georgia Institute of Technology, now professor at University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Student Supervisor – Master’s Thesis and Undergraduate Papers Department for Applied Computer Science IV
University of Mannheim, Germany
1996 – 1999

      • Michael Grundel
      • Tino von Roden
      • Jochen Müller
      • Jürgen Vogel
      • Martin Grumann
      • Volker Hilt

Teaching Assistant
Department for Applied Computer Science IV
University of Mannheim, Germany
1996 – 1999

Instructor
Continuing Education Department
University of Mannheim, Germany
1994 – 1995

Teaching Assistant
Department for Applied Mathematics
University of Mannheim, Germany
1992 – 1993

Service and Volunteer Activities

Organizing Committee

      • General Chair for ACM RecSys 2016 (hosted conference in Boston with ~600 participants)
      • Area Chair for Social Track at UMAP 2014
      • Organizer ACM RecSys’13 Workshop on Recommender Systems and the Social Web
      • Organizer ICWSM’13 Workshop on Social Computing for Workforce 2.0
      • IBM HCI PIC Chair (Professional Interest Community)
        2010 – 2012
      • Tutorial Chair, ACM RecSys’12, Dublin, Ireland
      • Organizer ACM RecSys’12 Workshop on Recommender Systems and the Social Web
      • Workshop Chair, ACM RecSys’11, Chicago, IL
      • Organizer ACM RecSys’10 Workshop on Recommender Systems and the Social Web
      • Organizer ACM RecSys’09 Workshop on Recommender Systems and the Social Web
      • Organzier ACM CSCW’08 Workshop on Social Networking in Organizations

Program Committee

      • ACM Recommender Systems RecSys 2008 – 2012
      • Associate Chair CHI 2012
      • International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM), 2009, 2011, 2012
      • International Workshop on Groupware CRIWG, 2005 – 2011
      • IW3C2 International World Wide Web conference WWW, 2000, 2002, 2009, 2010
      • Autonomous Agent 2001 Workshop on Agent Supported Cooperative Work (WASCW’2001)

Reviewer

      • NSF Grant Proposal Reviewer, 2011
      • UMAP User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, 2011
      • Interact IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2011
      • ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2003 – 2013
      • ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work CSCW 2002 -2013
      • International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, IUI 2010 – 2013
      • IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo ICME, 2008 – 2009
      • ACM Conference on Groupware Group, 2005
      • Multimedia Tools and Applications Journal (MTAP), Springer, 2003 – 2008
      • IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications PerCom, 2003

Memberships

      • Member of the RecSys Steering Committee (2016 – now)
      • Member of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)
      • Member of the editorial board of Multimedia Tools and Applications Journal, Springer (2003 – 2008)
      • Member of the alumni organization of the University of Mannheim, AbsolventUM e.V., Germany
      • Member of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), VA, USA (June 1997 – July 1999)