Nicola Marsden is a professor of social informatics at Heilbronn University, Germany. She combines insights from psychology, software engineering, design research, and organizational behavior to improve collaboration and foster innovation in technology development. Her research is based on a combination of experience in both academia and industry, often with a gender or cross-cultural perspective. In her transformation work with people, teams, and organizations she offers a balance between scientific knowledge and a practical approach.
Throughout her career, Nicola has worked toward bias-free equal opportunity for women. Nicola is vice chair of the National Competence Center Technology-Diversity-Equal Opportunities in Germany, a non-profit dedicated to ensuring equal opportunity for women and men in STEM education and industry. The competence center produces research-based resources and developed and coordinates nationwide initiatives such as the Girls' Day or Boys' Day program. This program helps young people choose a profession based on their individual strengths and talents, rather than cliches or gender stereotypes.
Nicola's most recent academic research examines behavioral design to de-bias collaboration, human-computer interaction, and design processes. She has also worked as a key collaborator with Karen Holtzblatt on the mission of WITops to understand and create solutions to retain women in technology.
Her extensive work with corporations also uses a theory-based, practical systems perspective to design, implement and manage innovation projects, change processes, training and development programs, and strategic development projects. Her long-standing experience working with organizations in different countries allows Nicola to translate research into everyday practices to improve group dynamics and perspectives. Contact Nicola with questions at: nicola.marsden@hs-heilbronn.de.
