Staff

I am a Visiting Professor at TU Darmstadt, specialising in Gender in Computer Science. Previously, I worked as a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and completed my PhD on diversity in programming at the University of Passau with summa cum laude.

With academic backgrounds in both computer science and the humanities, my research takes an interdisciplinary approach. I focus on the human and social aspects of software engineering, exploring how diversity—whether in terms of gender, cultural and ethnic background, beliefs, professional experience, or disabilities—affects collaboration in software teams. At its core, my work aims to better understand how people interact in software teams and how effective collaboration can enhance code quality.

I am particularly passionate about supporting young talent in computing. I advocate for creative and gender-sensitive approaches to inspire children and young people—regardless of gender or social background—to engage with computer science.

If you are interested in topics such as diversity, teamwork, society, creativity, and design in computing, I also offer supervision for thesis projects.

SoSe 2025

• Seminar: (Gender) Diversity in Software Development
• Praktikum: Computing for Social Good

2025

Emily Vorderwülbeke and Isabella Graßl. Belonging Beyond Code: Queer Software Engineering and Humanities Student Experiences. In The 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society (ICSE-SEIS), 2025.

2024

• Liebel, G., Klünder, J., Hebig, R., Lazik, C., Nunes, I., Graßl, I., Steghöfer, J.P., Exelmans, J., Oertel, J., & Marquardt, K.. Human Factors in Model-Driven Engineering: Future Research Goals and Initiatives for MDE. Softw Syst Model 23, 801–819, 2024
• Isabella Graßl: Diversity in Programming Education: Effects of Topic and Group Constellation on Young Programming Novices. Dissertation. Universität Passau. 2024.
• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. From Unicorn Tales to Space Shooters: Effects of Neutral and Stereotypical Programming Course Designs on Young Learners. In ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), 2024
• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. Coding to Cope: Teaching Programming to Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET), 2024
• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. Girls Rocking the Code: Gender-dependent Stereotypes, Engagement & Comprehension in Music Programming. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET), 2024
• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. Equitable Student Collaboration in Pair Programming. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET), 2024
• Luisa Greifenstein, Isabella Graßl, Ute Heuer and Gordon Fraser. “Help Me Solve It” or “Solve It For Me”: Effects of Feedback on Children Building and Programming Robots. In Proceedings of the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE TS), 2024

2023

• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. The ABC of Pair Programming: Gender-dependent Attitude, Behavior and Code of Young Learners. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET), 2023
• Isabella Graßl, Gordon Fraser, Stefan Trieflinger, and Marco Kuhrmann. Exposing Software Engineering Students to Stressful Projects: Does Diversity Matter? In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET), 2023
• Isabella Graßl, Stephan Krusche, and Gordon Fraser. Diversity and Teamwork in Student Software Teams. In Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Software Engineering Education, 2023
• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. Musikprogrammierung als universeller Motivator in der Programmierausbildung. Gesellschaft für Informatik, 2023

2022

• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. Scratch as Social Network: Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis in Scratch Projects. In The 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society (ICSE-SEIS), 2022.
• Luisa Greifenstein, Isabella Graßl, Ute Heuer, and Gordon Fraser. Common Problems and Effects of Feedback on Fun When Programming Ozobots in Primary School. In The 17th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education, 2022.
• Isabella Graßl and Gordon Fraser. Gender-dependent Contribution, Code and Creativity in a Virtual Programming Course. In The 17th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education, 2022 ICSE-Companion
• Isabella Graßl. Diversity in Programming Education: Help Underrepresented Groups Learn Programming. In 2022 IEEE/ACM 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (ICSE-Companion), pages 272–274. IEEE, 2022.
• Benedikt Fein, Isabella Graßl, Florian Beck, and Gordon Fraser. An Evaluation of code2vec Embeddings for Scratch. In The 15th Iteration of the Educational Data Mining Conference Series, 2022.

2021

• Isabella Graßl, Katharina Geldreich, and Gordon Fraser. Data-driven Analysis of Gender Differences and Similarities in Scratch Programs. In The 16th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education, pages 1–10, 2021.
• Luisa Greifenstein*, Isabella Graßl*, and Gordon Fraser. Challenging but Full of Opportunities: Teachers’ Perspectives on Programming in Primary Schools. In 21st Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, pages 1–10, 2021. (*Both authors contributed equally to this research.)