Dr. Susanne Friese

Susanne Friese started her academic career at the University of Bonn studying Nutrition and Home Economics. After a second pre-diploma specializing in the area of home economics, she continued her study programme at the University of Oregon in the USA finishing with a Master of Science in Family Resource Management and Marketing. Writing her Master Thesis, she discovered her interest in qualitative research method and computer-assisted procedures for data analysis.

She started working with computer software for qualitative data analysis in 1992. Her initial contact with CAQDAS tools was from 1992 to 1994, as she was employed at QualisResearch in the USA. In following years, she worked with the CAQDAS Project in England (1994 – 1996), where she taught classes on The Ethnograph and Nud*ist. Two additional software programs, MAXQDA and ATLAS.ti, followed shortly.

During her dissertation in the area of consumer economics and in her subsequent position as an assistant professor at the institut of marketing at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, she carried out a variety of research projects using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In that context, SPSS computer software was used to analyze quantitative data; ATLAS.ti supported her work with qualitative material. From 2004 to 2011, she taught qualitative and quantitative research methods in the Sociology Department at Leibniz Universität Hannover. In addition, she has accompanied numerous projects around the world in a consulting capacity, authored didactic materials and is one of the principal contributors to the ATLAS.ti User’s Manual, sample projects and other documentations. Recently her book “Qualitative Data Analysis with ATLAS.ti” was published (SAGE publications).

Susanne Friese worked at MPI MMG on a collaborative research project about Digital Humanities. Her main focus has been on qualitative data analysis for the GlobalDivercities project.