Anna Lena Menne, M.A.

As a research associate in the division of Digital Humanities at the Department of Media Studies at Paderborn University, Anna Lena Menne works within the independent research group “Development of Symmetrical Mental Models, which is affiliated with the Collaborative Research Centre TRR 318 “Constructing Explainability.” 

Her current research explores epistemic-affective tensions in human-machine interactions, particularly in engagements with large language models (LLMs) as technologies of anticipation. She is especially interested in how such moments of rupture (“cracks”) might be harnessed as generative liminal spaces for societally transformative practices of explanation. 

Anna Lena holds a transdisciplinary background in Media and Communication Studies and Global Studies, shaped by academic and personal experiences across Germany, the UK, South Africa, and Thailand. Her work explores the intersection of critical technology studies and participatory design, grounded in an ongoing engagement with socio-ecological transformation and epistemic justice. From this perspective, her research contributes to the collective renegotiation of meaning and agency in the context of digital futures as spaces of imaginative possibility.