Projects

In collaboration with policial science researchers from Georgia State University and University at Albany, we are developing augmented reality-based experiments to examine the impact of grievance, opportunity and risk as motivating factors when choosing to engage in political protest or terrorism. Study participants assume the role of a fictional ethnic minority in a fictional country and engage in dialogs with virtual characters that attempt to persude the participant to join a peaceful student-led protest or join a violent resistance movement.

Augmented Reality gaming promises new ways for humans to engage with their physical environment by overlaying gameplay elements via a head-mounted display. We present an artificial intelligence technique to automatically generate novel gameplay content for mixed-reality environments. We demonstrate the technique with a game we call "Augmented Reality Lemmings", a platform game in which the level content was procedurally generated.

As a college student, finding your internship or a job post graduation can be a daunting task. As a novice new to industry or even someone with experience, finding a job tends to be a black box experience. Deciding where, when and how to apply is a process that could benefit from improvement. Career services and fellow peers are great data resources for the job search however often this data is either not accessible or its not in a form that is easy to digest. On the flip side, career professionals such as career service office and program administrators constantly work with students to find

Our group is performing research to uncover the pain points of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder while visiting museums. We plan to design a solution to help improve their overall experience.

Automated Content Regulation on Reddit

Automated safety systems, a first step toward autonomous vehicles, are already available in many commercial vehicles. These are systems such as adaptive cruise control, which has the capability to slow down due to traffic, and automatic lane keeping, which maintains position within a lane without driver intervention. In order to ensure that these systems are properly used by drivers it is essential that they understand and appropriately trust the technology.

Game design is a difficult and costly practice. We developed a machine learning-based method for automatically generating games. We feed our system a series of gameplay videos of different games. Our system then leverages a technique we've developed called conceptual expansion to recombine its knowledge of game design to produce novel games.  

In this project, we aim to develop and evaluate displays of automation uncertainty that aid in the transition of control from automated to manual driving. Currently, we are focused on two manipulations of these displays. The first manipulation, metric, is manipulated by presenting system reliability information (Reliability) or the level of engagement necessary for the driver (Required Driver Engagement, RDE). The second manipulation, modality, is manipulated by presenting the information visually, auditorily, or with a combination of visual and auditory information (multimodal).

Since its earliest days, flaming, trolling, harassment and abuse have plagued the Internet. Our aim is to computationally model abusive online behavior to build tools that help counter it, with the goal of making the Internet a more welcoming place. In particular, we look at a novel approach to identify online verbal abuse using cross-community linguistic similarities between posts on different communities. This work will enable a transformative new class of automated and semi-automated applications that depend on computationally generated abuse predictions.

The Aware Home, an Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) Living Lab, provides an authentic home environment in which to conduct research in the areas of: health and well-being, connected home, home security and resource management, and the future of digital media and entertainment at home. Common uses of the home include: 1. innovating the next home technology, 2. performing human subject studies of our research in a controlled environment, 3. testing installation of solutions before deploying into peoples‚ actual homes, such as those individuals enrolled in HomeLab.

Our year-long thesis will explore research and design a solution to increase awareness, access and utilization of preventative dental care.

Athletes frequently get injured and often need to undergo a difficult physical therapy process to return to recover. Participation in recommended home exercises is low due to their repetitive nature. Staying motivated and consistently practicing their exercises speeds recovery. We focus on how to use technology to motivate and guide athletes through basic balance exercises that are often required after lower leg injuries, such as ankle sprains and ligament tears. Our solution is a 2D platformer game that takes in input through the Wii balance board, requiring different balance exercises.

This project concerns the analysis and design of a wearable technology garment intended to aid with the instruction of ballet technique to adult beginners. A phenomenological framework is developed and used to assess physiological training tools. Following this, a garment is developed that incorporates visual feedback inspired by animation techniques that more directly convey the essential movements of ballet.

A virtual reality rhythm game that uses a motion capture suit as its controller.

Exposure to diverse opinions makes us more informed and engages society in a necessary deliberation process. Inwardly focused groups risk tunnel vision and an inability to challenge their own views. Technically, online we can connect to anyone in the world but social network analyses of blogs and Twitter have shown that we stay connected in groups of like-minded others. There is untapped potential here for online environments to go further towards giving more access to diverse views. Incivility has direct consequences for relationships with others of different opinions.