Dr. A.H. Mader | People Pages: Find employees & contact details

I am associate professor in the Human Media Interaction Group. Before being at the UT I spent a few years in Nijmegen, Radboud University, as a postdoc, and at the TU München for studying computer science and doing a PhD.

Organisations

My current main research interest is wearable technology, and especially haptic stimulation and feedback in different applications as mediated social touch, sports and rehabilitation. Furthermore, I am interested in design processes for creative and human centered design of products that involve technology.
In the past I worked on Formal Methods in Computer Science, especially model checking in the modal mu-calculus, and modelling and verification of embedded systems.

Publications

2025

The Design Space of Haptics in Sports - Initial Studies and Research Agenda (2025)In SportsHCI '25: Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on Human-Computer Interaction and Sports. Article 2. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Mader, A., Weda, J., Postma, D. & van Erp, J.https://doi.org/10.1145/3749385.3749392Designing consensual mediated social touch interactions (2025)Journal of information, communication and ethics in society, 23(4), 495-506. Kolesnyk, D., Mader, A. & van Doorn, M.https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-12-2024-0193Price Negotiation in Virtual Reality: Is Using Touch an Opportunity or a Risk? (2025)[Contribution to conference › Abstract] 54th Annual Conference of The European Marketing Academy. Kolesnyk, D., Sallaberry, C., van Erp, J. & Mader, A.Requirements for an Automated Assessment Tool for Learning Programming by Doing (2025)In 2025 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation, ICST 2025 (pp. 679-686). IEEE. Rump, A., Zaytsev, V. & Mader, A.https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST62969.2025.10988998

2024

Psychophysics data of apparent motion and funnelling illusions by pressure (2024)[Dataset Types › Dataset]. 4TU.Centre for Research Data. Henell, E., Weda, J., Cedermalm, S., Eklöv, L., Håkansson, M., Nordström, J., Reibring, M., Stålhand, J., Mader, A. H. & Persson, N.-K.https://doi.org/10.4121/4d7f9e12-60eb-4e43-ad76-a6a371792308Touch by textile: Perception and experience of pressure touch by textile actuators on the arm (2024)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Weda, J.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036563079Data on the effect of pressure touch parameters (force, surface area and actuation speed) on emotional and sensory qualities of touch (2024)[Dataset Types › Dataset]. 4TU.Centre for Research Data. Weda, J. & Mader, A.https://doi.org/10.4121/5e5d3c61-7c20-4af7-abb4-d915d5eb5be1Psychophysics data of soft pressure by textile for young adults to determine the perception thresholds of force, pressure and reduction (2024)[Dataset Types › Dataset]. 4TU.Centre for Research Data. Weda, J. & Mader, A. H.https://doi.org/10.4121/f02e1d4f-bf35-4ba6-92a4-36beef3edfb9Requirements for an Automated Assesment Tool for Learning Programming by Doing (2024)[Dataset Types › Dataset]. Zenodo. Mader, A., Rump, A. & Zaytsev, V.https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13992349Psychophysics data for determining the effect of actuation speed on pressure, force and reduction thresholds (2024)[Dataset Types › Dataset]. 4TU.Centre for Research Data. Weda, J. & Mader, A.https://doi.org/10.4121/d93d3dc1-10bd-4ada-8d51-02d217a8e31d

Research profiles

I am mainly involved in the bachelor programme Creative Technology, participating in the curriculum committee in the early years, and setting up the programming line of the programme.
As a research line in education I am exploring how to use tinkering in academic teaching to stimulate ownership and reflection.

Courses academic year 2026/2027

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.

Courses academic year 2025/2026

Courses academic year 2024/2025

Wearable Breathing Trainer: measuring and coaching for children with dysfunctional breathing patterns
Together with Geke Ludden (UT) , Hellen van Rees (textile and fashion designer), Boony Thio (MST), Pascal Keijzer (MST), Jean Driezzen (ZGT), Eliza Bottenberg (Saxion).
We will develop a robotic vest in a child design and equipped with suitable sensors and actuators, that will help children with, e.g., asthma to do breathing exercises at home.
(starting january 2019)
Financed by The Pioneers in Healthcare Innovation Fund 2018

I am coordinator of the project WEAFING (weafing.eu) that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825232, starting January 2019.
Here, textile actuators ("knitted muscles") are developed from electroactive polymer and processed into textiles. Goal is to develop garments that provide haptic stimulation. The application range is huge, ranging from navigation applications to stress reduction garments, from movement training for work, sports or wellness to extended experience in gaming.
With Cedric Plesse, Edwin Jager, Nils-Krister Persson, Edwin Dertien, Jan van Erp, Martin van den Berg (elitac), Marius Janta (WT), and Marco Raaben.

In the project "Textile Reflexes" I developed, together with Hellen van Rees (fashion and textile designer) and Geke Ludden (interaction designer), a robotic vest that gives haptic feedback when slouching. This project was funded within the H2020 project WearSustain.
See a description at the wearable robotics lab.