معرفی
Dr. Pascal Lessel is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) within the Ubiquitous Media Technology Lab at Saarland Informatics Campus. He coordinates aspects related to the Media Informatics program at Saarland University while teaching various courses including GameCraft seminars, scientific writing proseminars, and Media Projects.
His educational background includes a doctorate (Dr.-Ing.) with research focused on gamification and human-computer interaction. His teaching portfolio spans from Winter 2012/2013 through Summer 2025, demonstrating long-term commitment to academic instruction in game design, gamification, and media informatics.
Dr. Lessel's research focuses on gamification, behavior change support systems, live-streaming of games, and crowdsourcing. His work explores how user-created gamification elements impact engagement, how to personalize gamified experiences based on user types, and how to enhance audience participation in game live-streams. His research combines theoretical frameworks with practical implementations, often developing prototype systems for evaluation.
His publication record shows consistent output since 2012 with over 50 publications, demonstrating expertise in gamification design, user experience evaluation, and audience participation systems. His recent work (2021-2022) shows increasing focus on personalization, user-created gamification, and the psychological impacts of different gamification approaches.
- Honorable Mention at CHI 2015 for 'Analysis of Recycling Capabilities of Individuals and Crowds'
- Honorable Mention at CHI Play 2019 for 'Crowdjump: Investigating A Player-Driven Platform Game'
- Active reviewer for CHI, CHI Play, UIST, INTERACT, and other top HCI conferences since 2014
- Member of Game Award Saar 2023 jury
- Member of GamesTalente jury since 2020
Dr. Lessel has supervised numerous bachelor's and master's students, with thesis topics spanning gamified task management, audience-participation games, behavior change interventions, and live-streaming enhancements. His students have developed practical applications for fitness motivation, waste separation, receipt capturing, and audience influence in streaming contexts. He also serves as a reviewer for major conferences in human-computer interaction and game research, demonstrating recognition within his academic community.
His research lab work focuses on developing and evaluating systems that bridge the gap between theoretical gamification frameworks and practical implementations, with particular attention to user autonomy, personalization, and audience participation in digital experiences.
