Education
- PhD Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2016
- MSc Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2010
- BSc (Hons) Computer Engineering, Pennsylvania State University 2004
Bio
My research interests lie primarily in the area of human interaction with immersive technologies, such as virtual / augmented / mixed reality (xR). Within that area, I have broad interests in user interfaces, user experience design, visualization, analytics, and training/education.
My PhD research focused on the nature of user experience in virtual environments. While there exists a substantial body of work exploring the idea of presence, or Place Illusion, in virtual environments (that is, the feeling of “being there” in the virtual space), there is almost no work on the sensation of Plausibility Illusion (that is, the feeling that the events observed in the virtual space are “really happening”). My work to date has sought to address this disparity.
Going forward, I am continuing to investigate how best to leverage immersive technologies to address real world problems. Some examples include using virtual and augmented reality for analysis of real 3D spaces and associated multimodal data (specifically targeting analysis of archaeological excavations), using virtual reality as a testbed to perform psychological and perceptual experiments, and identifying which system characteristics affect users’ feelings of Place Illusion and Plausibility Illusion so as to enable more effective training in virtual reality.
I did my PhD research with the Effective Virtual Environments research group at the University of North Carolina Department of Computer Science. My dissertation, Plausibility Illusion in Virtual Environments, was completed under the supervision of Mary C. Whitton and Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. It was recently selected as 2018 VGTC Virtual Reality Best Dissertation Honorable Mention at IEEE VR 2019.
In 2017-2018, I was a postdoctoral associate in the Virginia Tech Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, working under the supervision of Joseph L. Gabbard .
