Before starting in Tampere in 2014, he worked at Aalto University from where he received his Ph.D. in 2011, and at Google from 2007 till 2009, first in Ireland and later in Switzerland. Ihantola has been a visiting scholar at the Stanford University in the Lytics (Learning Analytics) Lab between 2014 and 2015. His research has revolved around software engineering, and educational software, today with a particular focus on smart content, automated assessment, mobile learning, and learning analytics in computer science education for over ten years (see http://tinyurl.com/petri-ihantola).