Thomas Blomseth Christiansen

General Info

Thomas Blomseth Christiansen is a technologist, independent researcher, public speaker, and entrepreneur. His work sits at the intersection of personal data, subjective experience, and empirical research methodologies. As co-founder of TOTTI Labs, he has dedicated his career to developing innovative self-tracking technologies that help individuals make discoveries about themselves through systematic observation and data collection.

Research Focus & Contributions

Thomas has pioneered the concept of the “1-Person Laboratory” (1PL), a methodological framework that puts individuals at the center of their own research investigations. Unlike traditional research aimed at generalized findings for entire populations, Thomas’s work focuses on causal connections at the personal level that are essential for individual discovery.

His research has particular relevance in mental health applications, where he has developed the One Button Tracker (OBT), a wearable device that allows individuals to track subjective experiences in real-time. This innovative approach has been applied in clinical settings, including work with:

• Veterans suffering from PTSD, enabling self-tracking of specific symptoms
• Refugees experiencing Complex PTSD, supporting psychotherapeutic treatment
• Individuals seeking to track and understand their subjective experiences in various health contexts

His published work includes peer-reviewed papers on distinguishing between rumination and intrusive memories in PTSD using wearable self-tracking instruments and how such technologies can bridge gaps between clinical sessions and daily life.

Key Innovations

• One Button Tracker (OBT): A simple, reliable, and privacy-protected method for patients to express and register personal experiences in precise detail. Co-created with veterans handling complex mental health challenges, the OBT enables “precision psychotherapy” that allows patients and therapists to observe symptoms at an unprecedented level of detail.
• Personalized Research Methodologies: Thomas has developed self-tracking techniques that reveal important temporal relationships between symptoms and contextual cues, potentially transforming both research and clinical treatment approaches.
• Technical Expertise: Thomas brings strong technical capabilities to his work, with specialties in self-tracking technology, lean and agile development, distributed systems, and the design of low level technical protocols. His early career work in Japan studying the Toyota Production System continues to provide inspiration for his technical philosophy. Today he works closely with robot assistants to shorten the distance between research and practice.

Notable Projects & Recognition

Thomas has built self-tracking technology for making conscious observations of subjective experience since 2009 and is known for creating a unique data set of all his sneezes during a five-year period. This project exemplifies his methodical approach to self-experimentation, which led to insights about his own pollen allergies and demonstrated the potential of personalized research. His work was featured in Quartz in 2015 in an article titled “A man who tracked five years of sneezes might have a fix for your pollen allergy.”

Gary Wolf, co-founder of Quantified Self, has described Thomas as “one of the most experienced and influential self-trackers in the QS community, both as a technologist and as a person seeking to discover something about themselves.”

Current Work

Thomas continues to advance the field of Personal Science through his work at TOTTI Labs, where he develops tools that make self-tracking accessible and meaningful. His focus remains on creating personal health data through conscious observations of subjective experience and daily living.

His research on small, low power, low friction observational instruments has been adopted in mental health research, where psychologists are investigating new ways to understand the link between symptoms, interventions, and the dense detail of lived experience. Recent publications include work on self-tracking with refugees and military veterans coping with Complex PTSD.

Published Research

1. Larsen, J.E., Eskelund, K., & Christiansen, T.B. (2017). “Active Self-Tracking of Subjective Experience with a One-Button Wearable: A Case Study in Military PTSD“. Proceedings of the Computing and Mental Health Workshop at CHI 2017.
2. Christiansen, T.B., Kristensen, D.B., & Larsen, J.E. (2019). “The 1-Person Laboratory of the Quantified Self Community“. In Metric Culture: Ontologies of Self-Tracking Practices (pp. 97-115). Emerald Group Publishing.
3. Arendt, I.M.T.P., Riisager, L.H.G., Larsen, J.E., Christiansen, T.B., & Moeller, S.B. (2021). “Distinguishing between rumination and intrusive memories in PTSD using a wearable self-tracking instrument: A proof-of-concept case study“. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, 14, e15.
4. van de Belt, T.H., de Croon, A., Freriks, F., Christiansen, T.B., Larsen, J.E., & de Groot, M. (2022). “Barriers to and Facilitators of Using a One Button Tracker and Web-Based Data Analytics Tool for Personal Science: Exploratory Study“. JMIR Formative Research, 6(3), e32704.
5. Riisager, L.G., Larsen, J.E., Huniche, L., Christiansen, T.B., & Moeller, S.B. (2024). “Collaborative development of a self-tracking assisted psychotherapy treatment concept for refugees with complex PTSD: Participatory Action Research” (Preprint).
6. Riisager, L.G., Moeller, S.B., Larsen, J.E., Christiansen, T.B., Aagaard, J., & Huniche, L. (2024). “Flipping a Mental Switch: A Qualitative Study on Refugees’ Experiences with a Wearable, Personalized Self-Tracking Instrument during Psychotherapy for Complex PTSD” (Preprint).

Speaking & Collaboration

Thomas is an active speaker and collaborator within the Quantified Self community and at conferences focused on health innovation, biohacking, and personal data. His extensive speaking experience includes presentations at prestigious events such as:

• Quantified Self conferences (Global and European events)
• Stanford Medicine X
• O’Reilly Strata Rx
• Computing and Mental Health workshop at CHI (Computer-Human Interaction conference)
• Biohacker Summit Helsinki
• Future of Health Summit
• Danish Broadcasting Company (featured in a TV program on statistics and data)

Thomas has also contributed to academic workshops and symposia focused on personal science and mental health applications, sharing his methodologies and insights with researchers, clinicians, and individuals interested in applying empirical approaches to personal discovery.

Misc

Thomas plays the clarinet and can easily be lured into discussion of jazz artists from any decade..