Kuldar Taveter appointed Professor of Information Systems at the University of Tartu

On 5 April, the senate of the University of Tartu decided to promote Kuldar Taveter, Associate Professor of Information Systems at the Institute of Computer Science, to the position of Professor.

Kuldar Taveter was born in Tallinn in 1965. In 2004, he received his doctoral degree in information technology at the School of Information Technologies at Tallinn University of Technology. Since then, he has worked for more than three years as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and for eight years as a research scientist in Information Technology at the Technical Research Centre of Finland. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of South Carolina in the USA and has held visiting professorships for short periods in Malaysia and China. 

Taveter has published 104 scientific papers, including two monographs. Over the past five years, he has published 26 papers. Three doctoral theses have been defended under his supervision. 

Professor Taveter's main research interests are related to the question of how to create information systems that support people and organisations in achieving the necessary goals, but do not dictate how to achieve them. His research group is working on methods to create emotionally acceptable software that meets the human values emphasised by social scientists, such as autonomy, equality, belonging and achievement. In particular, these aspects need to be taken into account in the development of information systems for health and well-being, such as IT solutions for senior citizens. Respect for human values has also become more important with the increasing use of artificial intelligence.

Taveter is Head of the Chair of Software Engineering and the Research Group of Human-Centric Information Systems at the Institute of Computer Science of the University of Tartu and Programme Director for Conversion Master in IT. He is currently leading a team at the University of Tartu in the European Union Horizon 2020 Pilots for Healthy and Active Ageing (2019–2024) and in the R&D project for the creation of the process and risk management model for the governance area of the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs (2023–2024). Over the past ten years, he has been working group leader on three other European Union projects and one Estonian project.

His hobbies are psychology, theology and swimming.