Thomas Fritz, Prof. Dr.
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Associate Professor of Human Aspects of Software Engineering (HASE) Email: fritz@ifi.uzh.ch |
Research
My research focuses on the human aspects of software engineering, with the goal of augmenting human capabilities to improve developers’ productivity, well-being, and overall experience. Working at the intersection of software engineering and human-computer interaction, my group studies developers in real-world settings, drawing on their behavior, physiological signals, and interactions with software to understand how they work and what they experience. We then translate these insights into human-centered approaches that support developers and teams in their everyday work. In particular, I’m interested in:
- Developer Productivity and Well-being: understanding how developers and teams perceive their productivity and what shapes it, from fragmented workdays and interruptions to hybrid work and the role of GenAI tools. We investigate these questions by studying developers in their everyday work through longitudinal field studies, experience sampling, surveys, and analysis of their work activities.
- Modeling Human Aspects: using sensing technologies such as physiological sensors and eye tracking, together with interaction data, to model developers’ cognitive and emotional states and to predict aspects of their work, including code difficulty and interruptibility. This work makes otherwise hard-to-observe phenomena in software development measurable and provides a basis for more human-centered developer support.
- Designing and Evaluating Interventions: translating insights about developers’ work and experiences into human-centered approaches that support focus, well-being, and more productive ways of working. We design and evaluate these approaches with developers in realistic settings to see how they hold up in practice. For example, our FlowLight study with 449 participants across 12 countries showed a 46% reduction in interruptions.
People
My research is conducted together with the members of the Human Aspects of Software Engineering Lab (HASEL) and multiple research collaborators. Working with great students and collaborators is one of the best parts of my job. I’m currently working with
- André N. Meyer (Postdoc at UZH)
- Alexander Lill (UZH)
- Anastasia Ruvimova (UZH)
- Roy Rutishauser (UZH)
- Isabelle Cuber (UZH)
- Juliana Souza (UZH)
- Tarek Alakmeh (UZH)
- Yasemin Gunal (UZH)
- Marie Salomon (UBC)
and have mentored and graduated several great students, including (in no particular order)
- @UZH: PhD students André N. Meyer (now a senior researcher in my group), Katja Kevic (Microsoft), Manuela Züger (IPT), Sebastian Müller (Netcetera), and many MSc and BSc students.
- @UBC: PhD students Nicholas Bradley (Lecturer at UBC) and Kevin Chow (postdoc at NYU), and MSc students including Chris Satterfield (Amazon), Hayley Guillou, Jan Pilzer (Microsoft), and Anna Scholz (Mozilla).
We collaborate with partners from industry and academia, past and present. Our industry partners have included more than 20 companies in Switzerland and abroad, among them ABB, UBS, Logitech, Microsoft, Google, JetBrains, Slack/Salesforce, neon, and Zeit AG. In research, we have collaborated with colleagues in software engineering, HCI, and psychology at institutions such as UC Irvine, UBC, LSU and Rutgers.
If you are a student interested in doing research in software engineering, and in particular in the area I am interested in, let me know. I am happy to talk to you about possible options.
Funding
My research has been and continues to be funded by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), DIZH, the European Commission (FP7), NSERC, and industry partners such as ABB, Microsoft, Google, JetBrains, Logitech, and UBS.
Teaching
I am teaching Software Engineering and the accompanying Software Engineering Lab (SoPra) at the Bachelor’s level, a graduate course on Human Aspects of Software Engineering, and a seminar on advanced topics in software engineering. See the teaching section for more information.
Service
My professional activities include (amongst others):
- Associate Head of the Department of Informatics, University of Zurich (2022–2026)
- member of the SNSF Ambizione Grant Committee (since 2020)
- program committee member and reviewer for leading software engineering and HCI venues (e.g., ICSE, FSE, ASE, CHI)
- co-organizer of Dagstuhl, NII Shonan and CSF seminars on productivity and developer experience, including the NII Shonan Meeting on Crafting the Future of Developer Experience (November 2026), and the Human-AI Collaboration in Software Engineering (HAXSE) workshop (March 2027)
Background
Previously, I finished my PhD with Gail C. Murphy in the Software Practices Lab at the University of British Columbia in 2011, where I was later an assistant professor. I received my Diplom degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in 2005 and also worked in the OBASCO research group at the École des Mines de Nantes.