Doreen obtained her diploma in Computer Science with a minor in Medicine at the University of Hamburg, Germany. She worked as a teaching and research associate at the Knowledge Technology Group, University of Hamburg, where she also accomplished her PhD.

Her research is centered around the understanding of artificial neural network learning, especially in “Reservoir Computing”, and on nonverbal communication with special focus on gesture recognition. The overarching goals of her research are to link principles of learning to human-robot interaction (HRI) as a contribution to the development of natural HRI interactions and social robots. Doreen organized several workshops on different research topics and serves as reviewer and associate editor for important journals and conferences in her research field. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.