Björn Braun

PhD Student in Computer Science at ETH Zürich

Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

About

I am a PhD candidate in Computer Science at ETH Zürich, specializing in machine learning, computer vision, and contextual AI. My research focuses on developing novel deep learning models that predict a person's emotions and physiological signals—such as heart rate—from egocentric systems (e.g., Project Aria glasses), videos, and wearable devices. Ultimately, my goal is to better understand a user's behavior to enhance contextual AI and healthcare approaches. Feel free to reach out if you want to know more about me or my work!

Experience

  • Doctoral Researcher at Sensing, Interaction & Perception Lab
    May 2022 - Present · 4 yrs 3 mos

    Research focus: Camera-based, egocentric, and wearable physiological sensing for contextual AI and health applications - Part I: Recording multimodal datasets of synchronized physiological signals, emotions, and camera/egocentric recordings - Part II: Developing signal processing and deep learning approaches to remotely extract emotions and physiological signals, such as heart rate and electrodermal activity, from video recordings (Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow) - Part III: Enhancing contextual AI and healthcare approaches with the help of these signals by better understanding a user’s behavior and internal state

  • Head Teaching Assistant at ETH Zürich
    Sep 2024 - Present · 1 yr 11 mos

    Leading a team of 10 PhDs/PostDocs responsible for the Human-Computer Interaction course with 180+ students (teaching, exam, mentoring)

  • Engineering Intern at ABB
    Oct 2018 - Apr 2019 · 7 mos

    - Developed a thermo-mechanical fatigue simulation for turbochargers (MATLAB, Simulink, C) on an embedded device with limited memory and computational power (version control via TFS/Git) - Tested and verified code using a hardware-in-the-loop test bed for later deployment

  • Head of Programming at Proboscis
    Sep 2017 - Jun 2018 · 10 mos

    - Elephant trunk-like robot capable of maneuvering through tight spaces (https://proboscis.ethz.ch) - Conducted the project from scratch in a team of nine people using agile sprints with self-organized funding of 70K CHF - Supervised a team of three to develop the perception and electronics (version control via Git) - Developed the control system for remote steering

  • Business Development Management Intern at ProQC International, China
    Sep 2014 - Feb 2015 · 6 mos

    Conducted factory audits and implemented spreadsheets for automated ISO norm evaluations (Excel, VBA)