Biography
Dr. Frauke Zeller joined Edinburgh Napier University in 2023 as Professor of HCI & Creative Informatics in the School of Computing and Engineering & the Built Environment. Her research expertise spans several areas, such as methods for big data analyses in audience analytics, AI ethics and Human-Computer and -Robot Interaction. She received her Ph.D. (Dr. phil.) from Kassel University, Germany, in English Linguistics and Computational Philology. After that, she worked in the Institute of Media and Communication Studies at Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany. Frauke's Habilitation (highest academic degree in Germany) research project dealt with methods to analyze online communities. From 2011 to 2013 she held a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, funded by the European Commission, and was researcher in Canada as well as the UK (University College London). She was offered a tenure track assistant professorship at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2013, where she stayed until 2022. Frauke has been involved in multiple international research projects and was awarded a range of major research grants, among them a Tri-Council grant (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, SSHRC), and has been co-applicant and collaborator in a project that develops AI-based social robots for pediatric pain management, funded by the new UK-Canada AI Research programme. Other projects are related to AI, such as developing higher education training courses in Responsible AI (funded by NSERC), analyzing social media content related to human rights issues and youth in Central America (RCYP), the development of AI-based technologies like chatbots for news media outlets and knowledge translation (SSHRC funded Partnership project, GJIL and XJO). Other projects were funded by the European Commission (Network of Excellence) or the German Research Foundation.
Frauke has been holding a range of research-related positions, such as director of the Centre for Communicating Knowledge, director of The Creative School Catalyst (a research catalyst and facilitator), she was DAAD Research Ambassador, and is still advisory council member of GAIN.
Frauke is also the co-creator of Canada’s first hitchhiking robot - hitchBOT. The project garnered broad public interest all around the world, and since then, she has been working on a range of human-robot interaction and AI-related projects.