Leon Hanschmann successfully defended his PhD thesis titled “Designing LLM-based Conversational Agents for Mental Health“ on October 12th, 2026. The dissertation advances research on digital mental health at the intersection of information systems and human-computer interaction. It offers an approach for developing and safely testing such conversational agents by using artificial users and expert evaluations in place of patients before vulnerable individuals are exposed. Furthermore, it provides experimental evidence of how the conversational agent’s compassion and physical embodiment influence the therapeutic bond and behavioral activation outcomes. Finally, it provides design principles for embodied conversational agents based on the values of their users. Together, these contributions offer researchers and practitioners a foundation for designing conversational agents for mental health that are empirically grounded and centered on the people it serves, thereby helping to make care accessible to more people.  

He convinced the examination committee consisting of Prof. Julian Thimme, Prof. Alexander Mädche, Prof. Alexey Vinel, and Prof. Oliver Grothe with his research. We congratulate Leon for his successful defense!