Sandra Birnstiel

Sandra Birnstiel has been a PhD candidate at Friedrich-Alexander-Universit?t Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) since 2022 and is a member of the Gamification Research Group at the University of Bamberg. Her research focuses primarily on the use of innovative gamification approaches to motivate team athletes – with a particular emphasis on team dynamics, the collective benefits of playful mechanisms in sports, and the individual motivation of each player.

Her academic background includes a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Würzburg. During her studies, she worked as a research assistant in the same department, supporting both teaching and research. Her focus was on the cognitive and behavioral effects of Virtual Reality (VR) on humans. In her Master's thesis, she investigated how virtual shoes in embodied VR influence human cognition and behavior.