For decades, funding bodies all over Europe promote gender-inclusive research projects, to aim for two main goals. Firstly, increasing the gender awareness of researchers, as well as their various cooperation partners from companies to civil society organisations. This gender awareness comprises background knowledge about diversity sensitivity within heterogeneous teams. Secondly, gender theories and methods inform the whole research and innovation process, from writing the proposal, formulating research questions, to methodology and publishing results.
The technology research project PROTEA (2022-2025) is one of those projects funded to introduce gender as a research dimension to a transdisciplinary team of experts from engineering, physical therapy, orthopaedic technology, and movement sciences. PROTEA’s goal was to optimize the prosthetic design using 3D printing and integrating sensors to monitor pressure distribution of residual limbs to identify potential health problems.
Anita Thaler was part of this team, and reports in her talk from the gender-sensitive human-centred technology design approach, focusing on how gender and intersectionality were integrated co-creatively into the actual technology development.

Speaker
Anita Thaler is a research associate and deputy director of the interdisciplinary Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ) a non-profit scientific association based in Graz, Austria. She heads the Gender, Science, and Technology research division as well as the Queer STS working group. She studied psychology, education, and women’s and gender studies at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz
and the Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt. In her research, she examines the interactions between technology, nature, and society, taking into account perspectives of intersectionality and social justice.
Thaler is currently conducting research in the fields of biodiversity, medical technology, and artificial intelligence, including an approach to diversity-sensitive, human-centered technology development.

Dial-in link via ZOOM:
https://tu-darmstadt.zoom-x.de/j/65252008032?pwd=M89goxb1udIC76yhXpA3-
Mxkd6VKew.1wPPe9fZWwgjq5uj
Kenncode:254498

Everyone Welcome! No registration required.

The lecture is part of the lecture series “Transcending Boundaries: The Complexities of Gender in Research”, which runs from October 14, 2026, to February 3, 2027. The series takes place on Wednesdays at lunchtime, combines a short keynote with a moderated Q&A session, and is coordinated by the Gender & Diversity Consulting Service Center at TU Darmstadt.