Barbara Hartl has been working at IHS as a Senior Researcher since 2024 and is part of the research group Social Sustainable Transformation. Before joining IHS, she was an Assistant Professor at WU Vienna. She obtained her diploma and doctorate in Psychology and her Master's degree in Sociology from the University of Vienna.

Her research focuses on sustainable consumption and social dilemmas, prosocial behaviour and sharing, with a particular interest in how individuals and societies address complex challenges such as climate change and digitalization. She applies qualitative and quantitative social science methods, including qualitative interviews, observations, experiments, field experiments and surveys, to explore how people adopt sustainable behaviours and what psychological and social mechanisms drive these changes in an increasingly digital and climate-conscious world.