Katja Karrer-Gauß is a human factors expert with a background in psychology. During the last six years, she has been working as a consultant supporting the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in their funding, especially in the design and managing of research programmes concerning human-machine-interaction. She also supports the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport in project assessment. After studying psychology, she worked at the Department of Human-Machine Systems at the Technical University of Berlin, first as a research assistant and later as a post-doc. Her main research interests were on the analysis and design of innovative technical systems in early stages of development. Katja did her PhD in 2010 in the field of traffic engineering on the possible psychological effects of the introduction of drowsiness warning systems in vehicles, especially concerning risk compensation and risk homeostasis. In various interdisciplinary projects, she evaluated technical innovations mostly in the mobility sector. In 2017, Katja joined the VDI/VDE-IT and helps to develop new research funding topics, supports research projects and organizes networking events. Currently she focuses on the topic of technology-mediated affective connectedness.