Past Summer Courses

Summer Course 2026

We were delighted to host the fifth edition of our Summer Course, this year titled with "From Emotions to Habits: Goal-Directed and Automatic Processes in Human Behavior” from June 1–3, 2026.

Over the course of these three days, we experienced quite a range of events – everything from bright summer sunshine to a sudden hailstorm, which nevertheless did not stop us enojyoing a diverse, engaging, and highly educational program featuring inspiring keynote lectures from our outstanding experts, poster and paper presentations, career-focused insights such as Navigating Your Academic Career Path, and countless opportunities for networking and exchange.

We were pleased to welcome 18 PhD students from a variety of disciplines. Their active participation, curiosity, and enthusiasm were invaluable and played a major role in making the course such a rewarding experience for everyone involved.

Our invited experts also contributed greatly to the positive atmosphere and intellectual exchange throughout the course, encouraging participants to think beyond established perspectives and providing plenty of food for thought:

• Ben Gardner (University of Surrey), who delivered the keynote “Habit Theory Has Underperformed. Here’s How to Fix It” and led the workshop “Developing Habit-Based Interventions for Health and Sustainability.”
• Giovanni Mirabella (University of Brescia), who presented the keynote “Task Relevance Determines Whether Facial Emotion Valence Shapes Behavior” and the workshop “When Theories Lead the Data: Rethinking Automaticity in Emotional Processing.”

Both experts did an exceptional job, not only by sharing valuable insights from their research but also by inspiring lively discussions, active engagement, and intellectual curiosity through their enthusiasm and passion for science.

Overall, the Summer Course was a great success. It provided a unique platform for scientific exchange, professional and career-related discussions, and meaningful networking. Most importantly, it was a memorable and enriching experience for everyone who took part.

Summer Course 2025

The fourth edition of our Summer Course, “Contemporary Evaluation of Interventions: Mobile, Digital, and Pragmatic”, took place from June 3-5, 2025. The three-day event featured a dynamic program including presentations, interactive workshops, poster session, networking opportunities, a career insights session, and a focus on open science - plus plenty of good moments along the way! We were thrilled to welcome 21 Ph.D. students from various Swiss universities and disciplines. Their active participation, collaboration, and enthusiasm played a key role in making the course a success.

A particular highlight was the presence of two distinguished keynote speakers:

• Dr. Jan Boehnke (University of Dundee, UK), who spoke on “Evidence-Based Professional Practice and Randomised Controlled Trials: Methodological Reflections on RCTs in Educational and Mental Health Research”, and
• Dr. Mirjam Stieger (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland), who presented on “Can Digital Interventions Change Our Personality? Empirical Evidence from Three Longitudinal Studies.”

Both experts also led hands-on workshops on designing practice-oriented impact evaluations and evaluating app-based interventions, offering valuable insights for all participants. These sessions encouraged active engagement, sparked lively discussions, and gave participants practical tools to apply in their own research.

Overall, the Summer Course was a great success - bringing together expert knowledge, fostering professional and career-related discussions, and providing a rich learning experience for everyone involved.

Summer Course 2024

The third edition of the Summer Course, organized by the Doctoral Program in Brain and Behavioral Sciences, was held at Uni Tobler (University of Bern) from June 26th to June 28th, 2024. This year's theme, "Large Language Models for Behavioral Science," attracted 11 doctoral students from various Swiss universities.

We were honored to host two keynote speakers: Prof. Dr. Rui Mata from the University of Basel and Dr. Dirk U. Wulff from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Prof. Dr. Mata discussed the use of embeddings in addressing taxonomic challenges in psychological research, while Dr. Wulff explored the potential of LLMs to generate behavioral insights through semantic analysis. The course featured a hands-on workshop led by Zak Hussain and Dr. Wulff, introducing participants to the Hugging Face ecosystem and its applications in behavioral science. Through interactive sessions, participants gained practical skills in feature extraction, model fine-tuning, and generating behavioral responses using open-source tools. The workshop also sparked discussions on the challenges of interpretability and safety in LLM research.

Overall, the Summer Course 2024 successfully combined expert insights with practical learning, equipping our doctoral candidates with new tools and perspectives to enhance their research in behavioral science.

Summer Course 2023

From June 12th to June 14th, 2023, the second edition of the Summer Course took place at Uni Tobler (University of Bern), organized by the Doctoral Program in Brain and Behavioral Sciences. A total of 11 doctoral students from various Swiss universities attended. The central theme of this year's event revolved around "Ambulatory Assessment: Real-Time Monitoring of Physiological and Behavioral Measures." We were honored to have two distinguished experts, Prof. Dr. Bruno Laeng from the University of Oslo, Norway, and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Ebner-Priemer from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, as our invited speakers. These experts delivered keynote speeches, conducted workshops, provided valuable feedback on students' presentations (posters and papers), and collectively enhanced the overall learning experience for our doctoral candidates.

Summer Course 2022

From the 13th to the 16th of June 2022, the Summer Course was held for the first time at the Uni Tobler (University of Bern) by the Doctoral Program Brain and Behavioral Sciences. A total of 13 PhD students from different universities in Switzerland participated. This year`s topic was “Working Memory: Contemporary Perspectives", and the invited experts were Priti Shah (University of Michigan, USA), Randall Engle (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA), and Chris Jarrold (University of Bristol, UK). The experts contributed with keynote talks, led workshops, gave feedback on students` presentations (posters and papers), and contributed to a unique experience for the PhD students!