Developing and testing aesthetically compelling methods for rendering hyperdimensional scientific datasets which are simultaneously information-rich, and easy for parsing by human cognitive systems.
Development and testing of VR software strategies which enable the control & design of nanoscale molecular systems in VR to understand molecular dynamics and flexibility.
Development of a mathematical approach for analyzing the statistical mechanics for non-equilibrium steered molecular dynamics, and which enables the unbiasing of molecular pathways which are sampled by users in a gamified VR environment.
Development of different aesthetic approaches which can be applied within immersive digital environments in order to positively impact users’ emotional & educational experiences.
Development of interactive devices and strategies (e-textiles, haptic interfaces, wearables, hand-tracking) which facilitate interaction between people in multi-user VR environments, and which enables users to have precise motor control over real-time scientific simulations.
Development of new technologies and software for virtual reality applied to scientific simulation and visualization.
Development, analysis, and prototyping of new technologies of interaction for “human-in-the-loop” VR environments.
Establishing a distributed international network of virtual reality ‘nodes’, which can serve as hubs where participants and ‘citizen scientists’ can enter into VR to assist us as we prototype and design our virtual reality software, run user tests, and use our framework to drive collaborative engagement to solve problems in scientific simulation.
Investigating research into the phenomenology of altered states of consciousness (e.g., psychedelic states, ‘flow’ states, mystical states, etc.) can be used to inform the design of compelling new immersive digital environments which participants find engaging, which lead to positive experiences, and which facilitate learning about new domains of science.
To carry out detailed user studies which analyze the extent to which the different aesthetic paradigms engage VR users and lead to compelling game mechanics within multi-user VR environments.
To carry out user-studies of distributed VR experiences in order to understand software design principles that will enable us to maintain a distributed base of committed citizen-science ‘users’.
To develop back-end cloud based computational models and software APIs which enable efficient communication between client and high performance cloud servers in order to process and analyze real-time molecular data streams.
To investigate aesthetic paradigms for representing user’s bodies within cloud-based multi-person immersive VR environments.
To investigate compelling path-based game mechanics that encourage citizen scientists to efficiently explore hyperdimensional pathways within complex molecular systems.
To investigate multi-modal data representations, which can increase the understanding of high-dimensional scientific data rendered in real-time within immersive digital environments.
To investigate strategies for using biofeedback (including for example eye-tracking, temperature sensors, heart-rate monitors, EEG, etc) to modify the immersive environment in a way that creates a positive user experience. Develop insight into how different aspects of VR phenomenology impact various biomarkers, and use these insights to construct engaging VR environments.
To use the statistical mechanical insight to develop scoring functions which enable efficient analysis of user data from the VR environment.