A scientist with a builder's instinct.
Dr. Jan Joosten — Postdoctoral Researcher in Data-Driven UX & AI at Siemens AG (Erlangen). Visiting Lecturer at TH Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm and OTH Regensburg. PhD in Business Economics (Dr. rer. pol., 2025).
I grew up in South Africa. I started a BSc in Accounting Sciences at UNISA in Johannesburg, then moved to Germany and finished a BSc in International Business at HfWU Nürtingen-Geislingen. The plan, more or less, was to do business. Then I got curious about why people use products the way they do — and that question hasn't let go since.
The pivot came during my MA in International Marketing at TH Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm. My master's thesis on rapid prototyping and Emotion AI cracked something open: that you can measure not only whether digital experiences work, but how they feel. Suddenly the boring lines between marketing, UX, and AI looked like the most interesting place to stand.
I owe much of what came next to Professor Dr. Alexander Hahn. He sparked the obsession during my master's thesis — and in 2021 he picked up the phone and offered me the kind of opportunity that quietly reroutes a career: a Research Associate role at Ohm, where I went on to head the Behavioral Studies and User Experience Laboratory (BeLab). The year after, that grew into a cooperative PhD with the University of Passau. I said yes.
In early 2025 I defended my dissertation, Three Essays on AI Applications in Marketing — Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaften, summa-of-late-nights cum laude. Along the way I contributed to the EU-funded ENCIRCLE research project, published peer-reviewed work on ideation quality, digital empathy, and trust in AI, and started Visiting Lecturer roles at TH Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm (Bachelor International Business) and OTH Regensburg (Bachelor International Relations and Management).
Today I'm a Postdoctoral Researcher in Data-Driven UX & AI at Siemens AG, based in Erlangen. I design and institutionalize AI and data strategy frameworks deployed across multiple Business Units, architect end-to-end AI-powered solutions — including User Voice Insights, an LLM-powered feedback pipeline with a European patent pending — and translate complex business challenges into structured roadmaps and validated proofs-of-concept. I also scaled a company-wide Community of Practice for Data-Driven UX from 7 to 150+ members within twelve months.
What ties it all together is the same thing that pulled me in to begin with: the conviction that the most interesting work happens where data, emotion, and decision meet — and that wherever you choose to stand, you should stand all the way.
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.