Professional Experience
04/2023 - now
Principal Senior Research Scientist • Optum Labs
- I work in the digital signals group on using various digital traces in the healthcare domain.
9/2021 – 04/2023
Postdoctoral Fellow • Yale University, Laboratory Medicine
- I work with Dr Wade Schulz on EHR-based precision and computational medicine to inform disease research, informed treatment, and outcome prediction across various medical fields, e.g., Covid-19, psychiatry, and behavioral health. We explore novel methods and modeling, e.g., modeling of medical data in graph structures (Neo4j) for clinical outcome prediction. We also explore the connection of patient data to biomedical knowledge (i.e., knowledge graphs) to aid better prediction and phenotype definition.
9/2019 – 9/2021
Postdoctoral Fellow • Northwell Health (Zucker Hillside) and Cornell Tech
- I work with Dr Dr John Kane, Dr Deborah Estrin and Dr Sunny X. Tang on exploring novel technological solutions for promoting mental health/wellbeing and explore options for digitalizing psychiatric care. My collaborative projects are revolving around social media usage patterns and biomarkers in serious mental illnesses, social and neuro-cognitive markers of resilience in Schizophrenia, and NLP methods to characterize formal thought disorder in spoken language. Explanatorily, I am working on identifying the effects of music listening behavior in psychiatric patients using platforms, such as Spotify or Last.fm. This project is two-fold to look into music as a predictive biomarker for mood and psychiatric symptoms, but also the potential of music to act as a therapeutic.
- More information on how we used Instagram data to show different usage patterns in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder can be found on the project page
06/2018 - current
Research Intern in the Social Dynamics Group under Dr Daniele Quercia and Dr Luca Aiello • Bell Labs, Cambridge, UK
- Investigation of urban influences on the experience of runners with qualitative and quantitative sensor measures
08/2012 – 12/2014
02/2012 – 07/2012
Master Project • University of Glasgow, UK
- Design of public display with mobile phone accessibility and Kinect-supported presence and gesture tracking to enhance the social connectedness and awareness within co-located teams
- More information on the project page
Education
01/2015 – 06/2019
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) • Queen Mary University of London, UK
Thesis title: The potential of emerging wearable physiological sensing in the space of human-subject studies
Thesis title: The potential of emerging wearable physiological sensing in the space of human-subject studies
- Dr Hamed Haddadi and Dr Akram Alomainy advised me during this project.
- My examiners were Prof Cecilia Mascolo and Dr Tony Stockman.
- I worked on utilizing wearable sensing data for emotion and stress inference in everyday life and how researchers can leverage these; special focus lies on the user side and criteria to choose the right devices for a study. I also did a study on using wearable/mobile data to infer the quality of social interaction based on the synchronization of movement and physiological signals between conversing dyads.
09/2010 – 07/2012
Master Course in Computer Science • University of Applied Sciences Mittweida, Germany
Thesis title: Interaction Design for Semi-Public Ambient Displays with Mobile and Motion-Tracking Components
Thesis title: Interaction Design for Semi-Public Ambient Displays with Mobile and Motion-Tracking Components
- Awarded Qualification: Master of Science (1.7 - good)
09/2007 – 09/2010
Bachelor Course in Computer Science • University of Applied Sciences Mittweida, Germany
Thesis title: Modernisation concept for the architecture of iBEAM
Thesis title: Modernisation concept for the architecture of iBEAM
- Awarded Qualification: Bachelor of Science (1.9 - good)
- I studied one semester abroad at the University of West of Scotland (Sep 2009 - Jan 2010)
Publications
My publications and dissertations can be found here here.
Invited Talks and Seminars
Does your smartwatch miss a (heart) beat? - Investigation of wearables for affective research
Cambridge Computer Laboratory Systems Research Group Seminar
Cambridge, UK, 09 November 2017
[link]
Service
2021
Co-Chair Workshop on the design of healthy user interfaces (HEALTHI), ACM IUI'22 (link)
2021
Co-Chair Workshop on the design of healthy user interfaces (HEALTHI), ACM IUI'21 (link)
Technical Program Committee and Panelist, Workshop on the sensing of blended experiences in professional and social contexts ([SensiBlend](https://www.sensiblend.io/)), UbiComp'21
Technical Program Committee and Panelist, Workshop on the sensing of blended experiences in professional and social contexts ([SensiBlend](https://www.sensiblend.io/)), UbiComp'21
2019
Co-Chair DigiStress Workshop, Pervasive Health
2018
Co-Chair PhD Forum, MobiSys
Teaching
Teaching Assistance at Queen Mary Universit of London:
- IT Programming (Java): 2015/16 - 2018/19
- Big Data: 2017/18
- Digital Media and Social Networks: 2018
Skills
Research and Analysis
experimental design and the appropriate statistical tools, quantitative methods (e.g., survey design and evaluation), qualitative methods (e.g., interview analysis), mixed methods (e.g., exploratory sequential design), User Experience (UX) evaluation
Technical
Python
Pandas, numpy, scikit, plotly, matplotlib
R
stats, ggplot, dplyr
Swift
iOS, Apple Watch apps
Java
desktop, Android (basic knowledge)
C#
desktop, Unity3D
web
basic skills in HTML, CSS, JavaScript (including building Electron apps)
databases
basic knowledge with relational (MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB) databases
misc
UML, design patterns (basic knowledge)
Tools
SPSS, ATLAS.ti, LaTex, Git, Office Suite, Omnigraffle, various IDEs (VS Code, Eclipse, etc.)
Professional Interests
HCI, smart devices, persuasive technologies, emotion mediating technology