Wijnand IJsselsteijn is a full professor of Cognition and Affect in Human-Technology Interaction at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He has an active research program on the impact of media technology on human psychology, and the use of psychology to improve technology design. His focus is on conceptualizing and measuring human experiences in relation to digital environments (immersive media, serious games, affective computing, personal informatics) in the service of human learning, health, and wellbeing. He has a keen interest in the relation between data science, AI and psychology, and works on technological innovations (such as sensor-enabled mobile technologies, virtual environments) that make possible novel forms of human behavior tracking, combining methodological rigor with ecological validity.

Wijnand IJsselsteijn has a background in artificial intelligence and cognitive neuropsychology (MSc, Utrecht University). He obtained his PhD in 2004 on the topic of telepresence. He is scientific director of the interdisciplinary Center for Humans and Technology at TU/e, which explicitly focuses on people- and value-centred perspectives of technology understanding, engineering, and design. He is also scientific board member of the Eindhoven AI Systems Institute (EAISI), and part-time professor at the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS) in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.  

Wijnand has published over 250 peer-reviewed academic papers in journals and conferences and has (co-)edited 10 volumes. His most recent co-edited book ‘Immersed in Media: Telepresence Theory, Measurement, and Technology’ appeared in 2015. His work has been supported through several industrial, national (NWO), and EU (FP6, FP7, H2020) grants. As co-PI, he is the recent recipient of the NWO Gravitation grant "Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies". 

“Putting people first: To unlock the potential of new technologies, we need to first understand and respect people – their passions and worries, needs and values, their contexts and ways of life.”