Appointment: Tobias Kowatsch

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 completion of his Habilitation. In 2013, he co-initiated the Centre for Digital Health Interventions (CDHI), today a joint initiative of the University of St.Gallen, the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich, and the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (OST), and has since held various roles there, including Co-Chair and Scientific Director. From 2018 to 2022, Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch served as an Assistant Professor of Digital Health at the University of St.Gallen. During this time, he undertook research visits to the United States and Singapore. On 1 August 2022, Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch was appointed Associate Professor of Digital Health Interventions at the Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich. Since then, he has also served as Co-Director at the School of Medicine (Med-HSG) at the University of St.Gallen.

Research into digital health interventions

The research of Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of digital health interventions for the prevention and management of chronic diseases and common mental disorders. At the core of his work are so-called just-in-time adaptive interventions: they leverage sensor and self-reported data from smartphones and wearables to predict vulnerable states such as stress, to determine the most appropriate intervention and dose, and to offer support at the very moment people are receptive to it. The aim is to reduce the burden on individuals to a minimum while maximising effectiveness in everyday life.

A particular focus lies on conversational agents, i.e. chatbots and voice assistants increasingly based on large language models, which deliver personalised interventions, for example for the prevention of non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes or for the promotion of mental health. A central concern of his work is to reach people with low socioeconomic status and to motivate them to adopt health-promoting behaviours, as these groups are particularly affected by such diseases. This is vividly illustrated by the HSG short film "Healthification"; in a field study with social media influencers, his team also investigated how hard-to-reach groups can be attracted to digital health interventions.

He currently leads the project GRACE, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), which develops a voice assistant designed to improve the quality of life of people with early dementia. In the Innosuisse flagship project on digital therapeutics for the prevention of type 2 diabetes, he collaborates in particular with HOCH Health Ostschweiz with the Cantonal Hospital of St.Gallen. As a project partner in the SNSF project KIND, he investigates together with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Switzerland how diabetes-related nerve damage in children and adolescents can be detected early using wearables and continuous glucose monitoring to prevent it in the long term. In addition, he is involved as Co-Principal Investigator in the Future Health Technologies 2 initiative funded by the National Research Foundation Singapore.

A project funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), in which he developed a digital health intervention for young adults with type 1 diabetes together with Dartmouth College, was successfully completed in 2025. His work has received several awards, including the ACM IMWUT Distinguished Paper Award and the Impact Award of the University of St.Gallen.