Organizers

Katerina Cerna, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher in ACCESS project (http://access.wineme.fb5.uni-siegen.de/). She has an interdisciplinary background in sociology, educational sciences, and design-oriented disciplines. Her research interest concerns how to design digital tools and environments so that they support learning and how professional knowing changes in the context of design and use of such tools.

Martin Dickel(M.A. in Social Science) is a member of the Collaborative Research Centre “Media of Cooperation” at the University of Siegen (https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en/). As a research assistant in the CRC subproject “The Cooperative Creation of User Autonomy in the Context of the Ageing Society” he is interested in the question of how, on the basis of a community-based participatory design approach, older adults can be involved in technology development and how sustainable appropriation infrastructures can be created.

Claudia Müller, PhD, is anAssistant Professor for “IT for the Ageing Society” in the Institute of Information Systems and New Media at the University of Siegen and Professor at Careum University Health, Zurich. She follows a praxeological and participatory design approach for assistive technologies for older people (www.inclusive-ageing.com). Her projects aim at the support and enhancement of social inclusion, mobility and autonomy of elderly people in order to strengthen quality of life and health status in higher age. She is a collaborator in the Siegen PraxLabs approach (www.praxlabs.de), which is based on a praxeological and participatory research paradigm. She is also deputy chairwoman of the expert commission of the Eighth Senior Citizens’ Report (Altenbericht) of the German Federal Government, a member of the working group “Alter & Technik” (Age & Technology) of the German Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics e.V. as well as the Interdisciplinary Gerontological Research Network (GeNeSi) of the Research Center “FoKos” at the University of Siegen (https://www.uni-siegen.de/fokos/).

Eija Kärnä, PhD, works as a professor in Special Education in the Faculty of Philosophy, School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland. During her career she conducted several multidisciplinary research with researchers from several fields of science (e.g. linguistics, psychology, nursing science, computer science). Her research interests have been particularly in communication and interaction of individuals with severe developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorders and technology for individuals with special needs.

Vera Gallistl, (M.A. in Sociology) is a university assistant and PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna. She is a PhD fellow at the COST-Action ROSEnet – Reducing Old Age Social Exclusion: Collaboration in Research and Policy and a student member of the international network project Aging + Communication + Technologies (ACT). National and international research projects she is involved in at the moment focus on older artists, old-age social exclusion, living arrangements and the digitalization of later life.

Verena Reuter, (M.A. in Sociology) has been a research assistant at the Institute for Gerontology at the TU Dortmund University since 2012. Her work focuses on, among other things, counselling and care services for people with dementia and their caring relatives, participative research approaches in the development of (technical) services and support structures appropriate for the elderly, ethical and social aspects of human-technology interaction in care.

Franz Kolland, PhD, is an expert in elderly education, culture of old age and use of new technologies. Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Franz Kolland researches and teaches at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Vienna. He wrote numerous publications (monographs, contributions in commemorative publications or in scientific journals) in the field of education of older people. He in an honorary professor of Gerontology at the Karl Landsteiner University in Krems, Austria, and head of the research unit “Gerontology and Health Research”.

Roberta Bevilacqua, PhD, Roberta Bevilacqua, Scientific Direction, IRCCS-INRCA, Ancona, Italy. She is working at INRCA since 2008, for several European projects. She has worked as also at the Università Politecnica delle Marche from 2012 to 2016, during which she has participated in the national project “Design for All”.

Heidi Kaspar, PhD, is a social and health geographer and has been working in the research department of Careum University Health since spring 2016. Heidi Kaspar’s knowledge of the functioning of transnational health markets and her expertise in qualitative social research (especially grounded theory and ethnography), in mobility and feminist research, and in human-environment interactions is mainly, but not exclusively, applied to the field of “Ageing at home”. is a social and health geographer and has been working in the research department of Careum School of Health, Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences since 2016 in the fields of aging and transnational health care. Heidi Kaspar’s research interests include patient mobility, care work, socio-techno-material interactions and feminist theory. Heidi Kaspar, PhD, is a social and health geographer and has been working in the research department of Careum University Health since spring 2016. Heidi Kaspar’s knowledge of the functioning of transnational health markets and her expertise in qualitative social research (especially grounded theory and ethnography), in mobility and feminist research, and in human-environment interactions is mainly, but not exclusively, applied to the field of “Ageing at home”.

Ulrich Otto, PhD, was Head of Careum Research from 2014-2019 (since 2019 Careum University of Applied Sciences Health, Research Division). Since 2014 he has been developing the Ageing at Home research programme. His main areas of research: Co-production in the welfare mix, ageing research (social gerontology), social network and support research, innovative forms of residential care, communal forms of housing, interaction of social and technical assistance for older people.

Gerhard Naegele, PhD, received professional training as an industrial manager in Berlin. He has a background in business studies and education, and he earned his PhD from the University of Cologne. He was University Professor (Chair) for Social Gerontology (1992–2013) and Director of the Institute of Gerontology (1992-2016) at the TU/Technical University of Dortmund, Germany. Since January 2017, Gerhard Naegele has been doing freelance work as an independent researcher and policy advisor.