Committee

Daniel Zielasko is currently a research assistant at the HCI group at University of Trier as well as a PhD candidate at the Virtual Reality and Immersive Visualization group at RWTH Aachen University. He received his Master degree in Computer Science in 2013 at RWTH Aachen University and is now working on the integration of VR technologies and methods into everyday life, such as existing professional workflows and entertainment. He has a special interest in the prevention of cybersickness and the design of convincing and innovative 3D user interfaces.

website

Bernhard Riecke is associate professor in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University. He received his PhD from Tübingen University in 2003 and worked for a decade in the Virtual Reality group (Cyberneum) at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, as well as Vanderbilt and UC Santa Barbara. His work spans theoretical and applied domains and is published in journals including Frontiers, JOV, PLOS One, ACM-TAP, Cognition, and Presence, and conferences including IEEE VR, ACM-CHI, ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM-SUI, ISEA, and Spatial Cognition. Bernhard recently gave a TEDx talk on “Could Virtual Reality make us more Human”.

website

Yuen C. Law obtained his PhD degree in RWTH Aachen University. There he worked on the RASimAs Project in collaboration with other academic and industrial partners to create a Virtual Reality based Regional Anesthesia Simulator for Training. Before his doctoral studies in Germany, Yuen Law worked as docent at TEC in Costa Rica, where he also coordinated the Computer Labs for the School of Computer Science. During this period, he also taught a semester at the University of Costa Rica and through a DAAD collaboration, at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua in Managua. Yuen C. Law currently works at TEC doing research and teaching in Computer Science. His interests include Virtual Reality and Simulation, Visualization and Interaction.

Abraham M. Hashemian is currently a VR game designer as well as a PhD candidate at the iSpace Lab at Simon Fraser University. He received his Master's degree in Computer Engineering - Artificial Intelligence from Sharif University of Technology Iran. He researches 2D (ground-based) and 3D (flying) locomotion interfaces for VR applications and he has a special interest in using technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to improve human life using games.

Benjamin Weyers is currently Assistant Professor at University of Trier and Head of the Human-Computer Interaction Group. Before, he was PostDoc at the Virtual Reality and Immersive Visualization group at RWTH Aachen University. He received his PhD in 2011 at the University of Duisburg-Essen and joined RWTH in 2013. He is interested in the development and research on interactive analysis methods for abstract and scientific data using immersive systems as well as the integration of VR and AR into the control of technical systems for the support of human users in semi-automated control scenarios. Additionally, he focuses on the development and use of formal methods for the description of interactive systems.

Gerd Bruder is a Research Assistant Professor for Mixed Reality at the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida. He received his Habilitation in Computer Science from the University of Hamburg in 2017, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Münster in 2011. His research is focused on Human-Computer Interaction in Mixed Reality, in particular 3D user interfaces, perception and cognition, and virtual human agents.

Dr. Victoria Interrante is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota (USA) and Director of the university-wide Center for Cognitive Sciences. Professor Interrante has a 20-year history of involvement in the VR community, focusing primarily on research related to the application of insights from visual perception and cognition to the development of more effective virtual reality experiences. She is currently serving on the steering committee of the international IEEE VR conference and as co-editor-in-chief of the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception.

Stefania Serafin is a Professor with special responsibilities in sound for multimodal environments in the Medialogy section at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. She teaches and researches on sound models and sound design for interactive media and multimodal interfaces. Before moving to Denmark, she got her Ph.D. at CCRMA, Stanford University.

Thereza Schmelter is currently a research assistant at the Beuth Univerity of Applied Sciences Berlin. She is a PhD candidate in the IISY research group, which focuses on VR, Computer Graphics, Computer Vision and Machine Learning. Her research topics include VR in confined spaces, redirection techniques and health related application of VR. Additionally she teaches game development at the University of Applied Scienes (HTW) in Berlin.