Hans Gellersen joined the department as a professor in the beginning of 2020. He started his career at the University of Karlsruhe, where he completed a PhD in Computer Science in 1996 and led an independent research group until 2001. At the time, he conducted early research into context-aware computing and initiated the Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp) conference series. In 2001, he was appointed as Professor of Interactive Systems at Lancaster University, and became involved in interdisciplinary HCI research as part of the EQUATOR project, and expanded his research into user interface technology and the eye-tracking field.

Hans' research is fundamentally motivated by the idea of ubiquitous computing. Interaction with computing used to have clear boundaries defined by the hardware of conventional computers but computing is now embodied in the world in a wide range of ways, blurring the lines between physical and digital. Hans has worked on topics from context-awareness and human activity recognition to spontaneous and cross-device interaction. Over the last ten years he has become e particularly interested in eye movement and how it can be leveraged as a context and modality for interaction.