Biography

I am an Assistant Professor in the Human-Centered Computing Division of the School of Computing at Clemson University. I co-direct the Clemson Virtual Environments lab with Sabarish Babu. Prior to joining Clemson University, I earned my PhD in the Virtual Experience Research Group at the University of Florida. My work has been published in a range of top venues, including IEEE VR, IEEE TVCG, ACM CHIPlay, ACM SAP, ACM Interaction Design and Children, Frontiers, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, and Scientific Reports.

I am broadly interested in research exploring how virtual reality experiences and technologies impact user experience and human behavior, especially when these effects could have relevance at a societal level. Specific focus areas include 1) understanding how long-term experience with VR changes the way people use and behave in virtual environments, 2) exploring how social interactions differ when mediated through virtual reality, and 3) investigating how perception and action is affected by the characteristics of virtual systems. Other areas of interest include presence, virtual avatars and virtual agents, locomotion in virtual reality games, and user interface design for immersive systems.

My teaching interests largely focus on preparing students to develop effective virtual reality applications. To this end, I regularly teach a semester-long class on Virtual Reality Systems (CPSC 4110/6110) and also run year-long Creative Inquiry classes focused on specific Virtual Reality application domains (e.g. healthcare, training, games). I also sporadically teach courses on the design of virtual reality games, embodied conversational agents and avatars, and on networked virtual reality applications.