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Citizen Science for Health 2025

 Keynote Speakers  

Keynote Speakers — Conference
Portrait of Igor Grabovac

Igor Grabovac, MD, PhD

Specialist Physician in Public Health — Associate Professor, Medical University of Vienna

Democratizing (public) health research: experiential knowledge as a mode of transdisciplinarity

Climate change, armed conflicts, rising inequities, pandemics, and the displacement of large population groups constitute some of the most pressing concerns for public health today. Addressing such complexity requires not only intersectional analyses but also knowledge practices that move beyond disciplinary silos. While the field increasingly calls for transdisciplinarity, this is often narrowly interpreted as the integration of academic disciplines, leaving the experiential knowledge of citizens, patients, and communities at the margins. In this talk, I argue that experiential knowledge is not an optional supplement but a central form of transdisciplinary expertise in health research. Drawing on insights from Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Michael Marmot, I highlight how power dynamics and structural inequities shape whose knowledge is valued. I then turn to the work of Emily Yates-Doerr to illustrate the demands and affordances of engaging with lived experience as a legitimate epistemic contribution, while also showcasing examples from our own projects. Ultimately, I suggest that embracing experiential knowledge in citizen science opens up the possibility for a more democratic, reflexive, and socially responsive (public) health research.

Biography

Igor Grabovac is a specialist physician in Public Health and Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Centre for Public Health at the Medical University of Vienna, where he leads the Community Health Lab, a transdisciplinary group of researchers focusing on promoting health equity and justice through participation. His work centers on disease prevention and health promotion among underserved and vulnerable communities, using community-oriented participatory research and implementation science frameworks. He has coordinated several large European consortia (Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, EU4Health), published over 150 peer-reviewed papers, edited one book, and leads the public health curriculum for medical students.

Community Health
Participatory Research
Health Equity
Portrait of Pietro Michelucci

Pietro Michelucci

Executive Director, Human Computation Institute — Visiting Scientist, Cornell University

AI & citizen science in health

Emerging AI has the potential to boost health-related citizen science by accelerating discovery, expanding inclusion, and enabling real-time collaboration. I recently attended a workshop called Grand Challenges for the Convergence of Computational and Citizen Science Research, which convened project leaders from some of the world's most impactful citizen science platforms, such as fold.it, eteRNA, iNaturalist, GalaxyZoo, and Stall Catchers. Our purpose was to brainstorm how AI could be used to amplify the scope and impact of citizen science, while being mindful of potential risks. For example, we discussed how AI can help identify anomalies in citizen-contributed health data, but recognized that domain knowledge and lived experience are needed to distinguish between spurious patterns and meaningful findings. Another example pertains to how adaptive feedback systems can empower participants to improve their contributions in real time, but that they must be designed to reinforce agency rather than dictate behavior. We also considered ways in which AI can broaden participation across more diverse communities, but realized that this requires careful attention to potential biases associated with new engagement pathways. In this talk, I will elaborate on these and other recent findings through the lens of health-based citizen science and describe approaches for mitigating risk, including human-AI teaming, just-in-time learning, and participatory governance. Collectively, these strategies suggest a roadmap for safely realizing the advantages of AI-augmented citizen science for health.

Biography

Pietro Michelucci is Executive Director of the Human Computation Institute and Visiting Scientist at Cornell University. As a cognitive scientist focused on applying hybrid human/AI intelligence to societal challenges, he founded the Stall Catchers citizen science project and authored the Handbook of Human Computation. At the Human Computation Institute, he leads several initiatives advancing dementia research and extending the methods of hybrid intelligence.

Human Computation
AI & Society
Citizen Science
Portrait of Igor Grabovac

Tanja Krones, Prof. Dr. med. Dipl .Soz.

Chief Physician of Clinical Ethics - Managing Director of the Clinical Ethics Committee, University Hospital Zurich

“Medicine is a Social Science, and Politics is nothing but medicine at a larger scale"

This famous words of Rudolf Virchow, drawing on his friend Salomon Neumann, hint to the Nature of Medicine being based on science and values . In my talk I will first give a short overview of the theory of medicine as a value based science and practice that has to fundamentally take the values of patients and the public into account on the level of individual treatments, research and policy. I will then reflect on some tensions and misunderstandings of “personalized” versus evidence based medicine, give examples of participatory research and policies and discuss, how we can together contribute to a more sustainable, just health care system that does not pay lip service to fundamental principles of autonomy, non maleficence, beneficence and justice but puts them into practice.

Biography

Tanja Krones, a trained physician and sociologist, is the Head of Clinical Ethics at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ) and associate Professor of Clinical Ethics at the University of Zurich (UZH) , teaching medical and nursing students and interprofessional teams at the USZ, the UZH, the ETH and abroad . She is member of the National Ethics Council of Switzerland and the Central Ethics Committee of the German Chamber of physicians, President of Advance Care Planning international and presided the Network for Evidence Based Medicine until March 2025. Her research encompasses theoretical, clinical and implementation science questions in various fields of medicine, such as Human Reproduction, end of Life, Professionalism and shared decision making in Medicine, dedicated to foster participatory transdisciplinary research and practice.

Ethics
Transdisciplinary Research
Personal Health