Head of the chair

Prof. Dr rer. nat. Thorsten O. Zander
Lichtenbergprofessur
Publications Dr Thorsten Zander
Lipezker Straße 47, 03048 Cottbus
Building 9 - Room 9.333
T +49 (0) 355 5818 613
Thorsten.Zander(at)b-tu.de

Professional career
06/2012 - 08/2018PostDoc at the Chair of Biological Psychology and Neuroergonomics at TU Berlin
06/2011 - 06/2013PostDoc at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen
08/2005 - 08/2010Group leader at the Chair of Human-Machine Systems at the TU Berlin
Research interest and expertise

Prof. Dr Zander conducts research in the field of neuroadaptive human-technology interaction using passive brain-computer interfaces:

  • Implicit interaction with technology
  • Cognitive exploration for the automated guidance of artificial intelligences
  • Ethics of neuroadaptive technologies.
Awards, prizes and scholarships
2016Raja Parasuraman Award Best Senior Researcher of the Neuroergonomics Society,
Philadelphia, USA
2013Best Poster Award at the Hamlyn Symposium on Medicine and Robotics, London, UK
2011Best Dissertation of the Willumeit Foundation, Berlin, Germany
2010Best Poster Award at the 4th International BCI meeting, Asilomar, USA
2009Best Paper Award at the HCI International 2009, Orlando, USA
2009Best-Poster Award at the meeting of the Society of Cognitive Science,
Bamberg, Germany
2009Best-Poster Award at the BBCI Workshop, Berlin, Germany
Non-profit scientific activities, honours and offices
  • Associate Editor of the journal Frontiers in Neuroergonomics, Neurotechnology
  • Head of the Society for Neuroadaptive Technologies
  • Organiser of the NAT 2019 conference, Liverpool, UK, approx. 100 participants, co-chairperson of the programme committee
  • Organiser of the NAT 2017 conference, Berlin, Germany, approx. 100 participants, board chairperson of the programme committee
Selected projects and third-party funded research
07/2020 - 06/2025Lichtenberg Professorship Neuroadaptive Human-Technology Interaction of the Volkswagen Foundation
01/2017 - 12/2019DFG project An investigation of the potential and limitations of implicit cursor control based on passive brain-computer interfaces
10/2012 - 09/2014EU project Brainflight of the Framework 7
09/2012 - 08/2014Project Human Centered Computing of the National Science Foundation (NSF), USA
Selected publications

[1] Thorsten O Zander, Laurens R Krol, Niels P Birbaumer and Klaus Gramann. Neuroadaptive technology enables implicit cursor control based on medial prefrontal cortex activity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113.52 (2016), pp. 14898-14903.

[2] Thorsten O Zander and Christian Kothe. Towards passive brain-computer interfaces: applying brain-computer interface technology to human-machine systems in general. Journal of neural engineering 8.2 (2011), p. 025005.

[3] Gert Pfurtscheller et al. The hybrid BCI. Frontiers in neuroscience 4 (2010), p. 3.

[4] Thorsten O Zander, Matti Gaertner, Christian Kothe and Roman Vilimek. Combining eye gaze input with a brain-computer interface for touchless human-computer interaction. Intl. Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 27.1 (2010), pp. 38-51.

[5] Thorsten O Zander et al. A dry EEG-system for scientific research and brain-computer interfaces. Frontiers in neuroscience 5 (2011), p. 53.