Germany
📌 GLOBAL SCIENCE AND RESEARCH LEADERSHIP: Extensive experience in leading, managing, and overseeing science and research projects addressing key global societal challenges. Proven hands-on leadership with expertise in leading remote international diverse teams. 📌 SCIENTIFIC IMPACT, FORESIGHT AND INNOVATION: Author of 80+ peer-reviewed publications in EdTech, AI, and Games. Spearheaded a trailblazing, forward-looking PhD in Computer Science (learning with mobile devices, 2005–10) during the pivotal transition from primitive mobile devices to the first smartphones (www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMoT-6XSg). A pioneer in context-aware mobile learning and worked on a foundational framework that accurately predicted the shift that became industry standards from static content to proactive, personalised learning responsive to a learner's real-time environment (e.g. location and cognitive load). This work effectively bridged the gap between early mobile learning theory and today's mobile apps and their sophisticated AI-driven contextual intelligence, personalisation and adaptation. Designed and taught a new state-of-the-art Mobile Learning course at Germany's #1 Business School at the University of Mannheim in 2020 and 2021.
https://globalyoungacademy.net/jyau - GYA is part of the UN Secretary-General's Scientific Advisory Board Network. In 2025, GYA marked its 15th anniversary, a milestone that celebrates a decade and a half of empowering young scientists and fostering international scientific collaboration. During this time, the GYA has directly impacted 650 members and alumni in over 100 countries, built partnerships with key stakeholders in the international science arena, supported the founding of dozens of young academies and similar bodies, and helped strengthen leadership capacity of early- to mid-career researchers (EMCRs) around the globe. Founded in 2010 in Berlin, Germany, the GYA continues to work towards creating a platform where EMCRs can contribute meaningfully to global scientific discourse and policy. The GYA is now widely recognised as an important and dynamic academic stakeholder working with partner organisations from across the globe to effectively represent the voice of EMCRs. The academy’s effective work on the international stage is made possible through institutional funding with 5 strategies: 1. Empowering early-career researchers worldwide by providing visibility and opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Annual meetings are held where members meet to discuss with one another and with stakeholders in the science policy area on key topics of global relevance. Core activities include capacity and skill-building workshops, high-level partnerships with international organisations where GYA nominates its members. 2. Contributing to solve societal challenges and build a sustainable future - Science Advice, Science Communication, Science Diplomacy 3. Improve the global science system - Open Science, Policy for Science, Research Assessment, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Academia 4. Collaboration with Young Academies around the world - Infrastructure, Joint Young Academy Projects, Network, Representation 5. Strengthen Internal Governance
The project evaluates how various national systems support early career researchers. globalyoungacademy.net/gya-awards-2025-sasha.../ I'm in the Communication and Engagement Team.
UNESCO Science Report is a flagship report on global science, technology (STI) and innovation trends. It is a global, authoritative, and policy-relevant assessment of STI and Policy at the service of sustainable development, peace and human rights. It is a forward-looking analysis of STI developments and future outlooks to inform policy and strategic decision-making, and cross-cutting integration of equity, gender, inclusion, sustainability and ethics. It address the following questions: 1. How are emerging scientific and technological frontiers reshaping science, society and governance? 2. What global and regional trends are driving investment, performance, and inclusion in STI? 3. How are countries/regions investing, participating and managing their relationship with science? 4. How can global STI systems be governed to promote equity, resilience and societal preparedness disruptions by 2050?
https://unesco-journal.com.ua/index.php/journal/Focus_and_Scope https://unesco-journal.com.ua/index.php/journal/editorial_board
I am a member of the following 3 Action Groups Pillars created to address the UNESCO Call to Action “Closing the Gender Gap in Science” - https://www.unesco.org/en/science-technology-and-innovation/cta 1 - Enhancing the visibility of female role models to dismantle gender stereotypes in science 2 - Developing innovative and inspiring educational strategies and initiatives to open educational pathways for girls in science 3 - Implementing policies and actions that promote inclusion, diversity and equity to create work environments that attract, retain and advance women scientists Project proposal ideas include highlighting women scientists in the media as role models.
https://ssec.si.edu/advisory-committees - Excited to have attended the Smithsonian Science Education Center in-person conference in 2025 to celebrate 40 years of transforming K-12 Education Through Science in collaboration with communities across the globe! NESST is the Network for Emergent Socio-Scientific Thinking. Located at the Smithsonian Science Education Center, it is a global network comprised of youth, educational innovators, business leaders, STEM professionals, and communities interested in transforming education. Committed to thinking differently through the lens of emergence and complexity, NESST reimagines education and life on a sustainable planet. NESST is guided by an Advisory Committee, who have designed a roadmap for this network. It is made up of advisors from diverse backgrounds, geographical locations, disciplines, years of experience, genders and ages in order to form a group that represents the diversity for STEM education for the 21st century and beyond. Key areas of focus: - Engaging youth, growing the network, scholarship and research, resources and curricular materials - NESST as a professional learning community - Conduct scholarly research around socio-scientific thinking, STEM and sustainable development - Support the implementation of teacher, student and scientist ambassador programs - Collaborate & produce Women in STEM eBook series (e.g. Challenges facing women researchers: Stories from all around the globe) - https://ssec.si.edu/smithsonian-science-stories - Scientists Ambassadors Program: To engage scientists to connect directly with schools, students, and teachers including proposing engagement opportunities for scientists, and identifying potential ambassadors, and to implement leadership speakers series, forums and roundtables.
- Once per year, Smithsonian assembles a group of 80 high school students (14-19) from across the world to participate in a 12-week global collaborative action research program. - In 2019, the output of this program was Food! (https://ssec.si.edu/food), where young people explored the question “How do we ensure nutrition for all?” Step by step, youth were introduced to a wide variety of perspectives, developed research skills, and learnt from real scientists globally. After discovering their own knowledge and feelings about their communities, they proceeded to understand the different aspects of sustainable communities through scientific and social scientific investigations, resulting in the published community guide. - In 2021, the topic was Sustainable Communities! (ssec.si.edu/sites/default/files/SC-Guide.pdf), where youth explored issues such as inclusion, urban planning, housing, transportation, resource use, and waste. - At the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit, held at the US National Academy of Sciences (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya5uEtXriKE), videos related to issues of sustainability that were published in these community research guides were created and shared. These guides are freely available to download and are developed in partnership with the InterAcademy Partnership as part of the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, which use UN SDGs as a framework to focus on sustainable actions.
🎮 Games Realizing Effective & Affective Transformation (GREAT) in societal & cultural domains 🇪🇺 3-yr Horizon Europe & UKRI Project (€3M, EU's flagship research & innovation program) 🎖️Finalist of Falling Walls Science Engagement Breakthrough of the Year 2024 projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/projects/success-stories/all/how-video-games-are-helping-shape-climate-policy | zenodo.org/communities/101094766 - Led and managed a multi-disciplinary consortium with 2 game companies and 7 academic partners, achieved the aim of building a communication channel between citizens and policy-makers using games. - Oversaw the execution of 10+ real-world co-designed case studies with policy stakeholders and the collection of data from citizens to address their concerns which were passed to policy-makers. This increased citizen engagement, science education in the public sphere, fosters public participation, built trust, empowered communities, and closed the communication gap between citizens and policy-makers. - Oversaw the execution of a survey integrated into popular games in collaboration with UNDP, which reached 1+ million people and received ca. 180,000 responses relating to their attitudes and preferences on different policies & available as easy-to-use dashboard on UNDP's website. Results: www.sparkblue.org/dashboard/play2act - Represented and presented the project at the World Forum Women in Science, Global Young Academy Annual Conferences, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Smithsonian Science Education Centre in-person conference, Humboldt Brazilan-German Frontiers of Science & Technology Symposium etc. - Managed 22 deliverables with rigorous internal reviews and oversaw 10 project milestones. - Oversaw the completion of ambitious key performance indicators including 20+ scientific publications, 5+ policy briefs/whitepapers, 50+ dissemination events (including UN Climate Week & World Economic Forum), exploitation and sustainability targets.
In 2026, DIPF celebrates 75 years, having grown from a university-affiliated institute into Germany’s largest education research institute, combining pioneering research, comprehensive data infrastructure, and digital services to advance education nationally and internationally. Situated in the EduTech team (https://edutec.science) and part of the Technology-Based Assessment team (https://tba.dipf.de/) and Information Centre for Education at the DIPF, I managed/coordinated the HICOF-DL project, which was a 3 year project funded by the Hessen Ministry for Digital Strategies and Development in Germany to enhance digitalisation in education as well as knowledge transfer to society. The team has completed a pilot and evaluation study with ca. 1000 students in a Teacher Education course, where we collected (with students' consent) information relating to their motivation and emotions before and after they had completed their assignments. We constructed some machine learning models for automatically assessing the assignments in order to reduce lecturers' workload. Finally, we provided highly-informative competence driven feedback to students and also collected their feedback on the feedback that was given to them. In the last project phase, we developed and conducted transfer workshops to show participants in both university and industry settings, how they could use these techniques to give personalised, automated feedback relating to their courses to their learners or staff. The project has been awarded Silver by the DISTR@L funding program. Project Video & Website: hikof.uni-frankfurt.de - Conference venues of dissemination include the University Future Festival 2023 -www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vTlX5P2fPo
I was situated in the Quality Learning Ecosystems team and the aim was to develop partnerships between various networks and UIL for youth and young researchers to contribute to research and capacity building towards SDG 4, and learn more specifically regarding the work and research projects of the UIL.