Prof. Dr. Thomas Olsson
Associate Professor, Tampere University
About me
Thomas Olsson is an Associate Professor of Human-Centric Design at Tampere University, Finland. He specializes in social technology, socio-technical systems, and computer-supported cooperative work — that is, seeking to understand the interconnections between information technology (IT) and social behaviour. He approaches these topics with research through design where new digital artefacts are envisioned and devised with a critical voice and studied with respect to their experiential, social, and cultural benefits and repercussions. His talk offers provocative examples from recent research, raising questions on how IT could more sustainably enhance human sociality in different areas of life. Dr. Olsson has published well over 100 papers in international scientific outlets, including top-tier outlets in Human-Computer Interaction, such as ACM CHI, ACM CSCW, Journal of CSCW, and Communications of the ACM. He regularly serves as an associate chair in the ACM flagship conferences on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Human Factors in Computing Systems. He continuously seeks to build bridges between Engineering, Design, and the Social Sciences through interdisciplinary education in relevant Master’s programmes: Sustainable Digital Life and Human-Technology Interaction.
