Dr. phil. Karola Pitsch

Dilthey Fellow
(Volkswagen Foundation)

Bielefeld University
Faculty of Technology
Applied Informatics & CoR-Lab
Universitätsstrasse 21/23
D-33615 Bielefeld

Phone: +49-521-106-12240
Fax: +49-521-106-2992
Office: Q2-140
karola.pitsch AT uni-bielefeld.de


Applied Informatics
CoR-Lab
CITEC
SFB 673

Research Group: Interactional Linguistics & Human-Robot-Interaction

Research Topics

• Multimodal Conversation Analysis
• Interactional Linguistics
• Human-Robot-Interaction
• Workplace Studies
• Classroom Interaction, Social Learning, Immersive Education

Our research focuses on multimodal communication and social interaction in everyday, professional and technologically mediated settings. We investigate the practices by which co-participants sequentially and multimodally coordinate and organize their courses of action. We use insights from interactional research to inform the design and modeling of Human-Robot-Interaction, and explore how users interpret and co-construct the interactional skills of a robot / virtual agent etc.
We draw on linguistic, ethnographic and Conversation Analytic (EM/CA) methods and attempt - in interdisciplinary projects - to link qualitative and quantitative approaches. Most recently, we have begun to integrate sequential micro-analysis of video-taped recordings with technical approaches (e.g. Motion Capturing, Augmented Reality) and modeling of interaction.

Group Members

• Karola Pitsch, Dr. phil. - Head of Group
• Marcel Kramer, MA
• Christian Schnier, MA
• Luise Süssenbach, MA
• Malte Wattenberg, MA (with Prof. Dr. H. Brandt-Pook, Wirtschaftsinformatik, FH Bielefeld)

Current Teaching

• SummerTerm 2013: Sprache & Raum: Deixis, Mo 10 - 12 h
• WinterTerm 2012/13: Interaktion & Grammatik, Mo 10 - 12 h
• SummerTerm 2012: Interaktion & Technologie, Mo 14 - 16 h
• SummerTerm 2011: Kommunikative Strategien in der Museums-Interaktion. Ein humanoider Roboter als Museumsführer?, Mo 10 - 12 h

Karola Pitsch: Short Vita

After studying French, Linguistics and History in Bielefeld and Paris (1995 - 2001), Karola Pitsch received her PhD in Linguistics from Bielefeld University, Germany (2006, Dissertation Award of the Westfälisch-Lippische Universitätsgesellschaft). She has since held positions as postdoctoral researcher in EU-projects with the ‘Work, Interaction & Technology’ research centre in the school of Social Sciences at King’s College London, UK (2005 - 2008), and the Applied Informatics group and the Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics at Bielefeld University (2008 - 2011). In 2011, Karola became a Dilthey Fellow funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, and a fellow in the ZiF Network of Young Scholars. She is Principal Investigator of projects within the CRC 673 ’Alignment in Communication’ and the Centre of Excellence ‘Cognitive Interaction Technology’ (CITEC). She currently heads the research group “Interactional Linguistics & HRI” at Bielefeld University. She has undertaken extended research stays at Sorbonne University and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France), UCLA (USA), the universities of Tsukuba and Saitama (Japan), and the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina).