Biography
Tobias Kowatsch holds a PhD in Management (University of St.Gallen, 2016), a Master’s in Business Informatics (Saarland University, 2012), a Master’s in Media and Computer Science (Hochschule Furtwangen, 2007), and a Diploma (FH) in Computer Science (Hochschule Furtwangen, 2005). After his successful habilitation in 2021, he was also awarded the degree of a private lecturer with the “venia legendi” in Information Systems with a special focus on Digital Health (University of St.Gallen, 2022).
Since 2013, Dr Kowatsch is the Scientific Director of the Centre for Digital Health Interventions, a joint initiative of the Department of Management, Technology and Economics at ETH Zurich and the Institute of Technology Management at the University of St.Gallen. In this role and in close collaboration with his interdisciplinary team and research partners, Tobias designs digital health interventions (“digital pills”) for the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases at the intersection of information systems research, computer science and behavioural medicine.
In 2014, Dr Kowatsch helped initiate MobileCoach, an open-source software platform for digital biomarker and health intervention research. He still participates in the ongoing development of MobileCoach and applies the platform in various research projects and teaching.
Since 2015, Tobias is also the Scientific Director of the CSS Health Lab, a joint initiative of the Chair of Information Management at ETH Zurich and the Chair of Operations Management at the University of St.Gallen. The CSS Health Lab aims at improving the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases with ubiquitous technology.
In 2017, Dr Kowatsch co-founded the ETH Zurich and University of St.Gallen spin-off Pathmate Technologies which creates and delivers digital health interventions for the management of non-communicable diseases. For example, manoa is a digital health intervention for individuals with hypertension. Since 2017, Tobias is also a Scientific Advisory Board member of Pathmate Technologies.
In August 2018 Tobias was appointed Assistant Professor for Digital Health at the University of St.Gallen.
Since March 2020, Dr Kowatsch is the Lead Principal Investigator (ETH Zurich) of the Mobile Health Intervention Module that is part of the Future Health Technologies Programme (FHT). FHT develops a mobile digital health technology concept to transform healthcare toward a patient-centric model. It is a programme of the Singapore-ETH Centre, established by ETH Zurich and Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF), as part of NRF’s Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (CREATE).
From March to July 2021, Dr Kowatsch was appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore.
In August 2022, Dr Kowatsch was appointed Associate Professor for Digital Health Interventions at the Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care, Medical Faculty, University of Zurich. Sincel then, he also joined the board of directors of the School of Medicine at the University of St.Gallen.
Professor Tobias Kowatsch on ORCID
Publications
Selected publications
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Spring, Bonnie; Pellegrini, Christine A.; Pfammatter, Angela F.; Duncan, Jessica M.; Pictor, Alexander; McFadden, H. Gail; Siddique, Juned (2020). Which Components of a Smartphone Walking App Help Users to Reach Personalized Step Goals? Results From an Optimization Trial.
Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 54(7):518–528. -
Kowatsch, Tobias; Schachner, Theresa; Harperink, Samira; Barata, Filipe; Dittler, Ullrich; Xiao, Grace; Stanger, Catherine; von Wangenheim, Florian; Fleisch, Elgar; Oswald, Helmut; Möller, Alexander (2021). Conversational Agents as Mediating Social Actors in Chronic Disease Management Involving Health Care Professionals, Patients, and Family Members: Multisite Single-Arm Feasibility Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(2)
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Breathing as an Input Modality in a Gameful Breathing Training App (Breeze 2): Development and Evaluation Study. JMIR Serious Games, 10(3):e39186.
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Jacobson, Nicholas; Kowatsch, Tobias; Marsch, Lisa, eds. (2022). Digital Therapeutics for Mental Health and Addiction: The State of the Science and Vision for the Future. Elsevier.
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Detecting Receptivity for mHealth Interventions. GetMobile : Mobile Computing and Communications, 27(2):23-28.
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Predicting early user churn in a public digital weight loss intervention. In: CHI 24: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Honolulu, HI, USA, 11 May 2024 - 16 May 2024, Association for Computing Machinery.
Honors
- ISRII Poster Award at the 12th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Research on Internet Interventions (ISRII) for "LvL UP"
- Silver Award World Media Festivals 2023 in Hamburg for "LvL UP"
- Gold Award World Media Festivals 2023 in Hamburg for "Healthification"
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Fitrockr & Garmin Health EMEA Research Grant Award 2023 for "Vogue"
Affiliations
Latest News CDHI
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Join Us at MuC 2026 in Duisburg: 2 Demos on Adherence and Receptivity, 30 Aug – 2 Sep
Meet Lola Jo Ackermann and Alexandre de Montleau at Mensch und Computer 2026 and explore two interactive CDHI demos that make digital health interventions more adaptive, transparent, and responsive. Digital health interventions face two deceptively simple questions: What should happen when engagement begins to decline? [...]
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Join Us at the Care for Older Adults Night August 20th
Presenting the Care for Older Adults Digital Health Night! Join us for a night of learning and exchange as we hear from 6 of the most promising companies working on older adult care! A special event in the context of the 2026 UMZH Precision Digital [...]
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Tobias Kowatsch has been Full Professor for Digital Health Interventions at the University of St.Gallen (HSG) since 1 August 2026
Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch completed his PhD in Management at the University of St.Gallen in 2016, and in 2022 he was awarded the title of private lecturer (Privatdozent) with the "venia legendi" in Information Systems with a special focus on Digital Health, following the successful [...]
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Join us at ACM Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) – July 21-24 2026, Bremen Germany
Please join Felix Moser at the 8th ACM conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) in Bremen, Germany from July 21-24th 2026. CUI was established in 2018 with the goal of bringing together researchers and professionals from various disciplines who focus on the design and study [...]
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2nd UMZH Precision Digital Therapeutics Summer School, 17-21 August 2026, Zurich
Background Information What are Precision Digital Therapeutics (PDTx)? How are PDTx designed, evaluated, implemented, scaled, and reimbursed? How can Generative AI make PDTx highly personalized? Digital Therapeutics (DTx) are software-based interventions to manage and treat disease. Precision DTx (PDTx) deliver hyper-personalized interventions at the most relevant and opportune [...]