Where audiovisual media meets science and education
Research, teaching and applied innovation in science communication, visual storytelling and mixed realities.
Dr. Jeanine Reutemann, Strategic Lead, Media & Methods Lab, ETH Zurich
Current Focus
As Strategic Lead of the Media & Methods Lab at ETH Zurich, I set the direction for how our team brings extended reality, AI and audiovisual design into teaching. Our current focus is the virtualization of teaching – not technology for its own sake, but virtual, hybrid and analogue formats used exactly where they create pedagogical value. These are the projects I am currently steering together with my team and our partners at ETH and TUM.
Virtualization Strategy for Teaching and Learning
UTL · ETH-wide · 2026–2035
ETH is growing across Zurich, Basel, Singapore, Zug and Heilbronn. With my team, I am centrally involved in shaping and implementing ETH's ten-year Virtualisation Strategy for Teaching. We develop prototype use cases for virtual field studies, simulations and onboardings, build standardized production pipelines and support the Digital Fellows programme, so that lecturers can create high-quality virtual formats on their own. My guiding principle: good design makes the technology invisible – what remains is the learning. Project page →
Cross-Campus Teaching in Virtual Reality
ETH Zurich × TUM Campus Heilbronn · Fall 2026
Together with TUM, we are building the first course taught entirely in virtual reality by two universities: eight sessions in VR for Master's and doctoral students in Zurich, Munich and Heilbronn. My team designs, prototypes and evaluates the learning environment in short iteration cycles with lecturers and students. The course is built from modular units that can be reused in other curricula, and it generates research on learning outcomes, cognitive load and the instructor experience in immersive settings. It builds on our VR pilot with Prof. April Wang (D-INFK), in which students explored the principles of VR design from inside a virtual environment. Project page → · VR pilot →
Forest Digital Twin
D-USYS · in process
Long-term forest dynamics and management scenarios are hard to show in a lecture hall. In co-design with forest researchers, my team is developing an immersive VR tool that makes these processes tangible – an example of the digital twins at the core of our virtualization work. Project page →
Deepfake Tool for Lecturers
UTL · in production
Deepfakes and synthetic media in education have been part of my research for years. We are now putting this into practice: an AI video tool that lets ETH lecturers train a model of their own voice and appearance and generate lecture videos from a script. My team designs the interface and user experience – with transparency and critical reflection as basic conditions for its use. Project page →
Further recent collaborations
Visevomed – interactive web experience on evolutionary medicine (D-USYS) · Soundscape Design App – Unity app for designing landscapes with sound (D-BAUG) · Statistik2go – podcast series that makes statistics audible (D-GESS) · MINTerlink – illustrations for a STEM education platform (D-GESS)
All projects of my team on the Media & Methods Lab website →
Recent
Highlights
Beavers are not otters - Know your AI
How does AI “see” things? As part of the Science Filmmaking Hackathon, we produced a short animation film on probabilities and visual transformers of AI models. Video won the 6th Global Science Film Award in Zurich, October 2025.
D-ARCH Visual Storytelling in the Archive - Audiovisual Essays
Spring Semester 2025
With the gta archive of the ETH Zürich, we co-developed a new course with an audiovisual essay assignment format. The Master, MAS and Ph.D. students developed audiovisual essays with archive material, thesis and visual storytelling practices. They also started to use some audio GenAI for the voice-over - which worked very well.
MR-experience: Peebee bot for onboarding of new ETH spaces
Mixed Reality Storytelling for our new “project-based labs” PBLabs at ETH Zurich. First character design drafts and tests for the prototype ongoing. see research
D-USYS Umweltsysteme Seminar - sciences meets meme cultures
Spring Semester 2025
This year’s assignment task for the around 60 Environmental Sciences students was to create short engaging science communication videos, focusing on current memes and internet trends (heat) to connect them to scientific knowledge. The results were varying from humorous, quirky, funny, entertaining, edutaining - and some quite provocative versions.
D-BAUG Three Stories of Swiss Urban Landslides
In Production
With Prof. Alexander Puzrin, we co-design and investigate new ways of storytelling narratives for three unique case studies, which happened in the last decades in Switzerland, at the Zurichberg, St.Moritz and Nendaz.
D-USYS conference Davos
06/24 Keynote on Science Communication: "I'm not a cat- or the art of personalized SciComm in Social Media
Today's situation is a result of a structural deficit in academic culture. Over decades, the only career relevant media was the written word. In contrast, the digital world exploded with a multitude of media communication formats. Most of them are visual, or audiovisual. Hence, we have some catching up to do if we want to stay relevant in the digital world.
Longterm milestones
Media & Methods Lab, ETHZ
‘Difference as a resource for peace’ – r4d programme SNF
An ETH case study portrait about the political and historical situation of the Mayan minorities in Guatemala in the light of SDGs.
‘Beyond’ – the transformative power of science film’
(1) Audiovisual reflections about the interdisciplinary co-design of our 68min research doc "Inequality and Conflict - Beyond us and Them", r4dprogramme SNF.
(2) Blog article about the process: ‘Capturing Conflict - the Power of Images’
2012 - first science & film project in Brazil and Costa Rica / EU FP7 project as a research technician at D-USYS ETH Zurich
2013 - Basel Culture Unlimited Trailer
2015 - Research cooperation with EPFL for 360-video investigation with the 'Venice Time machine' project.
2016 - Filmstill from the audiovisual publication about MOOCs (part of my Ph.D.)
2018 - 'Diversity of Empathy' Conference Experimental Docu, UniBasel
2018 -Manifesto for Videos in Higher Education
2018 - 'Massive Role Play Game' about different future scenarios (AI, Robotics, Space Travel, Climate Change) at the Brave New World Conference, Netherlands
2018 - VR-360 testing of the Leiden University pilots. In total, six educational pilot VR-experiences have been produced from the whole team.
2019 - Finding interconnections: Interwoven storytelling of four different case study portraits between Guatemala, Nigeria, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
2020 - Audiovisual keynote for the Silbersalz Festival 'Unspoken Truths'
Topics
science-society interface
translation of scientific complex concepts
audiovisual & image theories and practices
deepfakes & truths
science and education
mixed realities
work philosophy co-design
new legacy of media & methods
In the rapidly evolving media landscape of the 21st century, media competencies have emerged as one of the most critical skills. In an era characterized by the proliferation of digital platforms and the democratization of content creation, individuals are required to navigate a complex and ever-expanding media ecosystem.
Media competencies encompass a diverse set of skills, including but not limited to critical thinking, digital literacy, visual communication, and audiovisual media production. These proficiencies enable individuals to effectively consume, analyze, and create audiovisual media content, empowering them to become informed and discerning participants in the global discourse.