On 14 May 2018, Jan Hammerschmidt successfully completed his dissertation titled “Ambient Displays Supporting Environmentally-Conscious Behavior.” His work was evaluated by Professor Dr. Elisabetta Chicca (Neuromorphic Behaving Systems research group, Bielefeld University), Dr. Thomas Hermann (Ambient Intelligence research group, Bielefeld University), Roberto Bresin (KTH Stockholm, Sweden), Professor Dr.-Ing. Britta Wrede (Applied Informatics Group, Bielefeld University) and Dr. Pejman Sajjadi (Semantic Computing Group, Bielefeld University).

In his doctoral research project, Jan Hammerschmidt investigated and developed ambient displays, which are systems that display information in an unobtrusive manner so as to, for instance, encourage environmentally friendly behavior. Specifically, he examined energy consumption in the home and energy and fuel consumption when driving a car. For this, he developed an auditory system to support showers that consume less energy as well as a plant that can provide feedback on energy consumption in an apartment. A specially developed driving simulator with an audio-synthesis interface will be used for further research in this area.

Jan Hammerschmidt is currently working for an IT and software consulting company in Bonn. CITEC congratulates Jan on his dissertation and wishes him all the best in his future endeavors.