Dr. Jessica Szczuka is the Head of INTITEC and a leading researcher in digitized intimacy. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Applied Cognitive and Media Science from the University Duisburg-Essen, where she also earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology: Media and Communication. During her postdoctoral phase, she spearheaded the psychological research component of the interdisciplinary project IMPACT. Her investigation focused on studying the communication, relationship development, and understanding that individuals have with AI systems across the lifespan.
Throughout her doctoral studies, Dr. Szczuka dedicated her research to empirically exploring the influence of digitalization on interpersonal relationships and sexual experiences.
Advancing research on the digitization of intimacy and destigmatizing the research topic are deeply important to her. Her research, heavily influenced by the fields of HCI and HRI, specifically examines the social response to social and sexualized artificial entities like chatbots, robots, or computer-generated sexually explicit content. Additionally, she considers it her responsibility to empirically address risks, such as privacy concerns in intimate chat communication (including sexting) or the inclusion of vulnerable user groups.
