Caroline-Winkler

A social scientist in D-​BAUG

I am 28 and from Miami, a proud Latina who is also grateful for her Swiss roots. My background is in psychology. I thought I would be a child psychologist for most of my life until an internship at a children’s clinic here in Zurich dissolved that dream. I have a lot of respect for the work clinical psychologists do, but it was clear to me that I needed a career that would be less emotionally loaded. During my master’s thesis and still today, what interests me most is researching how people’s context shapes their daily decisions and how best to design studies to collect the data we need to understand these relationships.

My journey in psychology and research began with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida in the USA. A semester abroad in Germany convinced me to move to Europe, and I came to Zurich to complete my master’s degree at the University of Zurich. I worked odd jobs during my master’s studies --be it at labs, bars, or tutoring centers-- and continued on with them while I scanned job portals for my next career move. A doctoral student position advertised on the ETH job portal inspired me to apply right away. They were looking for someone to run a large-scale study to learn more about how people’s resources like time and money affect their activity and travel decisions. It was a great fit, and I’ve been pursuing my doctoral degree at the Institute for Transportation Planning and Systems (IVT) since 2020.

Other than teaching and working on consulting projects, most of my time at IVT has involved creating, cultivating, and executing the TimeUse+ study. I’m also active in my D-BAUG community as a co-president of the Association of Scientific Staff at D-BAUG (ASB). I find great joy and pride in working with my fellow board members to represent the views and preferences of the scientific staff at several departmental bodies and working on more global ETH issues in conjunction with members from other departmental associations.

I can’t get enough of surveys, or rather, how to design them so that everyday people want to participate. Everyone is looking for data, but data is only of value when the entire collection process is well thought out and executed. My path will continue as a social scientist with an ever-growing interest in how people use their time and how it impacts their quality of life and well-being. I will never stop learning and I will continue to lead with kindness wherever life takes me.