I am an assistant professor in the School of Computing at Clemson University. Prior to joining Clemson University, I earned my PhD in the Virtual Experience Research Group at the University of Florida.

My research explores how the availability of consumer virtual reality will affect society, and seeks to ensure that this effect will be positive. Specific areas of interest include understanding how user behavior in VR changes as users gain experience with the technology (this research is funded by NSF CHS Small #1717937), how embodying avatars in video games can alter user behavior in the real world, and comparing how people play games in VR to more traditional gaming media. I am also interested in the experience of presence, particularly in developing improved measures of presence so as to better understand how variations in virtual reality technology and design affect the user experience. A third area of research considers perception in virtual reality and the real world (this research is in collaboration with Sabarish Babu and Chris Pagano).

Information for Students

I am currently recruiting students, particularly students with experience developing virtual reality applications in Unity 3D or Unreal, developing conversational agents, or automated machine translation. If you’re interested in understanding how people use virtual reality, and in how virtual reality changes people, please email me and we can set up a meeting. I ask all students interested in working with me to complete a small test project that aligns with our shared research interests to help me gauge your skills and areas of expertise.