Thomas Meneweger worked as a PhD student and research fellow at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction until 2020. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Salzburg and since he joined the group in July 2010, his research has been focusing on qualitative research methods and user experience. Thomas has been conducting ethnographic research (participant observations and qualitative interviewing) to explore workers’ experiences and computer-supported practices in increasingly automated and interconnected work and manufacturing environments (e.g., semiconductor factory, assembly lines, truck driving). The working title of his PhD thesis is “Experiencing Automation: User Experiences and Practices with Automated Systems”.

In spring 2019 Thomas stayed for three months as a visiting researcher at the University of California in Berkeley to pursue his research on “Regaining Control: Humans Interacting with Automated Systems in Production Environments”. He was granted a scholarship from the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation and he was affiliated with Berkeley’s Institute of European Studies.