Prof.Dr. Ceenu George

Short CV

Ceenu George is a CS Professor at the Technical University of Berlin, where she leads the Chair for Human-Computer Interaction. She brings over 15 years of combined academic and industry experience across human-computer interaction and digital product development. From 2021 to 2023, she was a Senior Researcher at Google Munich, working in the Trust and Safety Research team. During this time, she also held a Visiting Professorship (W3) at the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence lab at the University of Augsburg (September 2021 to September 2022). She earned her PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) from LMU Munich, focusing on Virtual Reality Interfaces for Seamless Interaction with the Physical Reality.

Prior to her academic career, she held various industry roles including Senior Digital Product Manager and UX Research Lead at American Express in Munich and London, and research and development positions at Goldman Sachs (London) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Vienna). She holds an M.Sc. in Human-Centred Computer Systems from the University of Sussex and a B.Sc. in Computer Science with Business from the University of Bath.

Research Philosophy

As AI takes over more human tasks and products are increasingly optimized for user attention, we need to ask: what should we really be optimizing for? Maximizing attention isn’t inherently wrong. It is a product decision, aligned with business models that rely on engagement to generate revenue.

But as an independent researcher, I’m interested in exploring different priorities. What if we designed systems that support curiosity, not by demanding attention, but by aligning with how people naturally build understanding over time?

In everyday interactions like navigating, writing, or searching, people often just want to get from A to B. In those moments, users rarely seek out long-term understanding of the system. Yet that understanding still matters, especially as AI systems grow more autonomous and increasingly influence decisions and outcomes.

I believe the key lies in peripheral perception: the subtle, background awareness we maintain of our surroundings without focusing on them directly. Peripheral interaction is not the same as curiosity, but it can nurture it. It allows people to pick up on patterns, signals, and behaviors without interrupting their primary tasks.

By engaging users at the edges of attention, we can help them build a deeper awareness of system behavior. This makes room for curiosity to emerge naturally, even during fast, goal-driven primary interactions.

That is why I build systems that operate in the periphery, especially in AR/VR and hybrid environments where physical and digital spaces intersect.

Lab Vision

We design AR/VR systems that support continuous, human-centered learning in hybrid environments—where physical, 2D, and 3D spaces intersect. By leveraging peripheral interaction, we aim to help users stay aware of what intelligent systems are doing, even when tasks are automated.

Our research combines theory, prototyping, and empirical studies to explore how users interact across devices and dimensions. We focus on creating interfaces that are unobtrusive, perceptually aligned, and grounded in the dynamics of real-world attention and cognition.

Our goal is to enable technology that supports curiosity, awareness, and agency—without demanding more attention.

Education

Experience