My name is Tomáš Kratochvíl and I'm a Czech psychology Ph.D. candidate from Masaryk University. My interests are in work and positive psychology and modern technologies in psychology. In my Ph.D. thesis, I focus on the use of game design outside of games to promote psychological and objective outcomes in workers and students. I mainly use quantitative methods and experiments, but also qualitative user-experience interviews.
In the seven months spent at the IMC, I enjoyed working with my mentor, Andreas Lieberoth, on using rich game design in econ experiments as well as collaborating with Janice Weng on the game design effect on food choice. This allowed me to intertwine my own field with other fields which I see as the great advantage of the IMC - to interact interdisciplinary and learn from other fields. It has also been astonishing how the IMC helps you connect informally through the breakfasts and other social gatherings.
The AU has been a wonderful experience which has given me a lot of networking opportunities, discussions about research, and also future research collaboration possibilities. It has been amazing and I hope to return to the IMC one day. I especially value the feedback from my IMC Tuesday Talk and from the people I collaborated with. I also love how these Tuesday talks (and interdisciplinary environment in general) have broaden my outlook completely outside my regular niche.
Do attend the IMC social and research events (IMC Tuesday talks, breakfasts, seed fund meetings, etc.). Do not hesitate to reach out to anyone - be it for the fact you find their work interesting or you just want to hang out. I have never been to a workplace where people are so nice and easy to connect with!
