Values

I aim to be explicit about my values, which are guiding my research as well as my teaching. They will be regularly updated as I evolve and learn, and I am always open for constructive feedback and inputs.

First, let me acknowledge my own identity and associated privilege that may impact the values I hold: I am a white, able-bodied, mostly neurotypical, bisexual, cis woman who was born and raised in a middle class academic family in Switzerland. The language that I teach in (German) is my native language and I also speak English (the language of academia) fluently. I try to be mindful of how my identity shaped my experience as a student by focusing explicitly on aspects of my identity where I hold privilege, which brings me to my first value:

Equity and Inclusion

It is important to me to contribute to a more equitable and just academic culture. This includes being mindful of disadvantaged groups in my teaching and supervision (e.g. making my presentations as accessible and inclusive as possible, providing podcast versions, offering office hours, creating exams that do not rely on being solved fast or - better yet - avoid exams and opt for asynchronous assessments, being explicit in my expectations, etc.), creating a syllabus that is as diverse as possible (in the readings, for example), and being explicit about my support of underrepresented groups.

In my research, I aim to analyze effectiveness not only for the average student, but to always check whether my interventions affect people of different groups differently and including qualitative data sources in my analysis. This is work in progress as my statistics knowledge is still rather superficial.

Finally, it directly follows that I am (intersectionally) feminist. Therefore, I aim to act anti-racist, LGBTQIA+ friendly (with a capital T), anti-ableist, anti-agist, and class-consciously.

Mutual Respect and Lifelong Learning

Students of higher education are grown adults. I am as likely to learn from them as they are to learn from me. I aim to continuously learn and improve through feedback and interactions in the lecture hall and meetings.

Mental and Physical Health

Academia has a reputation of being very poor on one’s mental and physical wellbeing. I am committed to continuously educate myself on how to improve my own and support others’ wellbeing. For example, this includes leaving my laptop at work over the weekend and not reaching out to colleagues during their vacations. In my teaching, this means that deadlines may be moved and that I will offer asynchronous options so that people who are not able to come to the lecture can still participate.

In my research, I acknowledge that not only content knowledge is a desired outcome, but that the mental and physical health of students should never be negatively impacted by the intervention (yes, it feels weird to even write this, but this is not a given).

I am a mental health first aider (as certified by ENSA, last updated in 2025) as well as a physical first aider (as certified by the Schweizerisches Rotes Kreuz, last updated in 2025), which means that I am equipped to support others in mental or physical crisis until professionals arrive.

Transparency and Open Access

I publish anonymized data and analysis scripts on the open access framework OSF. For empirical studies, I further preregister them to increase transparency. It is important to me (and luckily supported financially by ETH) to publish my papers open access.