Medizinische Fakul­tät OWL

Britta Wrede is head of the Medical Assistance Systems working group at the Medical School OWL at Bielefeld University and a member of the scientific board of the TRR 318 Constructing Explainability as well as a representative of the Faculty of Medicine on the scientific advisory board of the Centre for Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC).

After completing her master's degree and doctorate at the Faculty of Linguistics in 1999 and the Faculty of Technology in 2002 respectively, she worked with E.nShriberg for a year as a DAAD [German Academic Exchange Service] fellow at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in Berkeley researching hotspots in dialogues. She then returned to Bielefeld University and worked on various projects until she became head of the Applied Computer Science working group in 2009. Since 2019, Britta Wrede has headed the research team, research unit, research group "Medical Assistance Systems" at the newly founded OWL Medical University. In 2022, she moved to the
University of Bremen for a year to work with Michael Beetz on co-constructive task learning and with Tanja Schultz on the integration of biosignal integration in human-robot interaction research to analyse
signals during interaction with a robot.

Britta Wrede's work focuses on understanding and modelling multimodal interaction strategies in human-agent interaction by applying and further developing theoretical concepts of pragmatics in the establishment of mutual understanding, especially in children. This includes the use of multimodal communication channels such as facial expressions or eye contact, which are also important for adult users in everyday learning situations such as work assistance systems. Britta Wrede's research into the development of assistance systems for therapy and diagnostic support is based on the hypothesis that assistance must be embedded in social interaction.

Britta Wrede is a member of the DFG Senate Committee for Graduate Schools. She is co-editor of the German Journal of Artificial Intelligence and co-editor of the International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR). She is and has been Principal Investigator in several EU projects (CODEFROR, ITALK, RobotDoc, Humavips) and national projects funded by the DFG (EXC 277 Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), TRR 318 Constructing Explainability, CRC 673 Alignment in Communication), the DLR (Sozirob - The Robot as Fitness Coach), the DAAD [German Academic Exchange Service] (DAAD Thematic Network on Intelligent Systems) and the BMBF (KogniHome, DESIRE - German Service Robotics Initiative).