This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners in the mixed reality community to brainstorm how sensing the brain can be useful for VR/AR/XR applications. Topics of discussion are expected to broadly include how brain sensing can be used in VR (e.g., cybersickness, presence, cognitive load), what are the challenges in doing this type of sensing in VR/AR/XR (e.g., hardware constraints, movement, real-time analysis), how to do it responsibly (neurorights, privacy, anonymization, open datasets). A moderated panel discussion will seed ideas based on panelist perspectives. A poster session will allow participants to share their research and/or perspectives. Breakout discussions will allow for open exchange of ideas. The goal of this workshop is to create a research vision to inspire the community and to catalyze the exploration of a new scientific frontier.
Call for submissions
Workshop organizers invite submission of one to two pages on previously published work, emerging results or opinion/positions including, but not limited to, the following topics:
● Sensing the brain while moving, in real-time, with commodity devices, and for mixed reality applications.
● Methods, methodologies, theoretical constructs that could apply to brain sensing in XR
● Lessons learned from other contexts that apply to XR
● Novel opportunities created in the context of XR that are different from other contexts
● Privacy and security risks created by large scale personal and enterprise use of XR devices equipped with brain sensing technology
Submissions should be one to two pages in the IEEE VR poster submission format. Submissions should be emailed to ejain@ufl.edu with the subject line “VR 2027 Brain Sensing Workshop submission”.
● Dates
○ Abstract deadline (if applicable): N/A
○ Submission deadline: Jan 15th 2027
○ Notification deadline: Jan 29th 2027
Panelists
Dr. Matti Pouke is a tenure-track assistant professor of computer science and extended reality in the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Oulu, Finland, where he works in the Perception Engineering Laboratory led by Prof. Steven M. LaValle. He was an Academy of Finland postdoctoral researcher from 2020 to 2023 and contributed to the ERC-funded ILLUSIVE project on the foundations of perception engineering. His background is in digital media technologies, particularly 3D graphics and interactive virtual environments. His current research focuses on human perception in virtual reality, including gravity and scale perception, and on the quantification of presence, in which he combines VR experimentation with neuroscientific methods such as EEG/ERPs. He is especially interested in interdisciplinary research at the intersection of extended reality, neuroscience, perceptual psychology, and AI.
Dr James Baumeister is a lecturer and Program Director for the Bachelor of Information Technology at Adelaide University. His research spans human-computer interaction, augmented and virtual reality, and human performance, with a particular focus on how cognitive load and fatigue shape the way people use immersive interfaces. His work has included EEG-based monitoring of mental workload, decision-support interface design, and studies of AR as a countermeasure to sleep deprivation. His recent work examines vigilance in AR under sleep deprivation, adaptive interfaces that respond to the user’s cognitive state, and AI-driven deceptive patterns in emerging technologies. He is interested in making cognitive load measurement in XR practical, robust and comparable across studies.
Dr. Daniel Ferris is the Robert W. Adenbaum Professor of Engineering Innovation at the University of Florida. His research focuses on human-machine interactions, including both mechanical and electrical dynamics. Specific projects include bionic prostheses, robotic exoskeletons, virtual reality motor training, and mobile brain imaging. A recent addition to his laboratory is the use of audiovisual stimulation to combat the cognitive decline that comes with aging and dementia. In addition to his duties in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, he is also Director of the UF Center for Engineering Human Performance & Wellness. He completed his PhD at UC Berkeley, MS at the University of Miami, and BS at the University of Central Florida. After 16 years on the faculty at the University of Michigan, Dr. Ferris moved to the University of Florida in 2017. He has been elected as a Fellow of the AAAS, ASB, AIMBE, and NAK.
Organizers
Dr. Eakta Jain is an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. She received her PhD and MS degrees in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and her B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur. She has industry experience at Texas Instruments R&D labs, Disney Research Pittsburgh, and the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Dr. Jain is interested in the safety, privacy and security of data gathered for user modeling, particularly eye tracking data. Her research has been nominated for multiple best paper awards and been funded through faculty research awards from Meta and Google, federal funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, US Department of Transportation, and Florida Department of Transportation. She served as the Technical Program Chair for ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research (2020) and Applications and ACM/Eurographics Symposium on Applied Perception (2021). She served on the ACM SAP Steering Committee (2022-2024) and as a Director on the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee (2022-2025). Dr. Jain is an ACM Senior Member.
Dr. Evan Center is a postdoc in the Center for Machine Vision and Signal Analysis and part of the Hybrid Intelligence program at the University of Oulu. He is interested in perception in immersive environments and best practices in research methods and statistics. Ongoing projects include developing EEG measures for quantifying presence and cybersickness, probing how peripheral visual information and environmental affordances impact perception in VR, and leveraging computational approaches to better understand neural representations. He obtained his PhD from UIUC in 2020, where he used EEG, fMRI, TMS, and psychophysics to study visual perception and awareness. He has received support from NSF IGERT to complete the neuroengineering program at UIUC, and the Beckman Institute Fellowship to examine the relationship between attention and scene perception using ERPs. From 2020-2025, he was a postdoc in the Perception Engineering Lab working under the ERC funded Illusive project (Prof. Steve LaValle) at the University of Oulu where he established the ITEE Neuroscience lab space and conducted its first combined EEG-VR experiments.
Dr. Bruce Thomas is currently Emeritus Professor at Adelaide University. His current research interests include the following: user interfaces, augmented reality, virtual reality, visualisation, wearable computers, CSCW, tabletop display interfaces, and the use of cognitive psychology in virtual environments research. He has served in many roles for the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, IEEE Virtual Reality, and IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers, including program chair, general chair and on the steering committee. He also founded the ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces Conference (formerly IEEE Tabletop). He is a member of the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Academy, awarded 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) Career Impact Award and the ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC) 20-Year Impact Award. Prof. Thomas' academic qualifications include the following: a BA in Physics from George Washington University, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in Computer Science from Flinders University. Prof. Thomas has over 350 publications and has been cited over 14000 times.
For questions, please contact:
Eakta Jain, University of Florida ejain@ufl.edu
Evan Center, University of Oulu Evan.Center@oulu.fi
Bruce Thomas, Adelaide University bruce.thomas@adelaide.edu.au