Johannes Schöning
Affiliated Professor of Human-Computer Interaction
Research Interests
Schöning’s teaching and research interests include human-computer interaction, human-centered artificial intelligence, and spatial cognition, with a focus on designing interactive systems that seamlessly merge human-centered design and cutting-edge AI to augment human capabilities.
Email
In addition to his position at MBZUAI, Professor Schöning is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, where he leads the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) group. At St. Gallen’s School of Computer Science, he contributes to an innovative curriculum that uniquely integrates computer science with entrepreneurship and business innovation.
Prior to joining MBZUAI, he established the HCI research group at the University of Bremen through the prestigious Lichtenberg Programme of the Volkswagen Foundation. During his tenure in Bremen, he served as Director of the Bremen Spatial Cognition Center (BSCC) and as a board member of the Leibniz Science Campus for Digital Public Health, the Center for Computing Technologies (TZI), and was an affiliated researcher at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM).
Before his time in Bremen, he held a faculty position at Hasselt University in Belgium and contributed to the founding of the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Cities at University College London (UCL), where he remains a visiting researcher with UCLIC. He is also a visiting professor at the Interactive Technologies Institute (I-TI) in Portugal.
Earlier in his career, Professor Schöning was a senior researcher at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Saarbrücken, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Saarland University in 2010, supported by Deutsche Telekom Laboratories. He holds a master’s degree in geoinformatics from the University of Münster (2007) and is the founder of Qkies, the world’s first eSweet.
Prior to joining MBZUAI, he established the HCI research group at the University of Bremen through the prestigious Lichtenberg Programme of the Volkswagen Foundation. During his tenure in Bremen, he served as Director of the Bremen Spatial Cognition Center (BSCC) and as a board member of the Leibniz Science Campus for Digital Public Health, the Center for Computing Technologies (TZI), and was an affiliated researcher at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM).
Before his time in Bremen, he held a faculty position at Hasselt University in Belgium and contributed to the founding of the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Cities at University College London (UCL), where he remains a visiting researcher with UCLIC. He is also a visiting professor at the Interactive Technologies Institute (I-TI) in Portugal.
Earlier in his career, Professor Schöning was a senior researcher at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Saarbrücken, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Saarland University in 2010, supported by Deutsche Telekom Laboratories. He holds a master’s degree in geoinformatics from the University of Münster (2007) and is the founder of Qkies, the world’s first eSweet.
- Ph.D. in computer science, Saarland University, Germany
- Ph.D. scholarship (joint program), University of Münster and Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, TU Berlin, Germany
- Master of Science in geoinformatics, University of Münster, Germany
- Distinguished Member ACM 2025
- ACM MobileHCI 2024 Honorable Mention Award
- ACM DIS 2024 Honorable Mention Award
- IEEE VR Best Presentation Award 2023
- ACM MobileHCI 2022 Honorable Mention Award
- ACM MUM 2021 Honorable Mention Award
- ACM MobileHCI 2021 10-year Impact Award
- ACM MobileHCI 2020 Honorable Mention Award
- INTERACT 2019 Best Paper Award
- INTERACT 2019 Accessibility Award
- ACM MobileHCI Lasting Impact Award 2018
- Senior Member ACM 2018
- ACM MUM 2017 Honorable Mention Award
- ACM VRST 2017 Best Poster Award
- Top 10 “Nachwuchswissenschaftler des Jahres 2017”
- Member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy 2017
- ACM CHI 2017 Honorable Mention Award
- ACM MobileHCI 2016 Honorable Mention Award
- Top 10 “Nachwuchswissenschaftler des Jahres 2016”
- ACM Recognition of Service Award 2016
- ACM Mobile HCI 2015 Best Paper Award
- ACM SUI 2015 Honorable Mention Award
- Neo Ubimedia MindTrek Honorable Mention Award 2014
- Junior Fellow “Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI)” 2013
- Eve Schade, Gian-Luca Savino, Yasemin Gunal and Johannes Schöning: Traffic Jam by GPS: A Systematic Analysis of the Negative Social Externalities of Large-scale Navigation Technologies. PLOS ONE, (2024)
- Gian-Luca Savino, Ankit Kariryaa and Johannes Schöning: Free as a Bird, but at What Cost? The Impact of Street Networks on the User Experience of As-The-Crow-Flies Navigation for Cyclists. MobileHCI 2022: Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Service, Honorable Mention Award, (2022)
- Martin Brandt, Compton J. Tucker, Ankit Kariryaa, Kjeld Rasmussen, Christin Abel, Jennifer Small, Jerome Chave, Laura Vang Rasmussen, Pierre Hiernaux, Abdoul Aziz Diouf, Laurent Kergoat, Ole Mertz, Christian Igel, Fabian Gieseke, Johannes Schöning, Sizhuo Li, Katherine Melocik, Jesse Meyer, Scott Sino, Eric Romero, Erin Glennie, Amandine Montagu, Morgane Dendoncker and Rasmus Fensholt: An unexpectedly large count of non-forest trees in the western Sahara and Sahel. NATURE, (2020)
- Benjamin Tannert, Reuben Kirkham & Johannes Schöning: Analyzing Accessibility Barriers Using Cost-Benefit Analysis to Design Reliable Navigation Services for Wheelchair Users. Interact 2019: Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Best Paper Award & Accessibility Award, (2019)
- Dirk Wenig, Johannes Schöning, Brent Hecht and Rainer Malaka: StripeMaps: Improving Map-based Pedestrian Navigation for Smartwatches. MobileHCI 2015: Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Service, Best Paper Award, (2015)