VRAC

03/02/2026

The HCI Graduate Program welcomed a group of talented Fall 2026 prospective students to campus for a full day of activities designed to introduce them to the depth and range of our program.

The schedule included:

Faculty and student talks

One-on-one interviews

Guided tours of VRAC labs and facilities

Hands-on demonstrations

The students had an opportunity to meet our community, explore ongoing research, and see how interdisciplinary collaboration drives the program forward. We appreciate their time and interest.

To be considered for next year, please have your Fall 2027 application submitted before January 15. Applicants will be reviewed by the HCI Admissions Committee, and an email invitation will be sent to students selected to attend.

02/09/2026

We are proud to share that Natasha Lambert, an HCI Master of Science Creative Component student, has been selected to receive a GPSS Leadership Award in recognition of her leadership and service to the graduate and professional student community at Iowa State University.

The award committee evaluated applicants on their demonstrated leadership, sustained service, and positive impact across their department, the university, and the broader community. Natasha’s contributions stood out.

Please join us in congratulating her on this well‑deserved recognition. Her leadership strengthens the graduate and professional student experience at Iowa State University, and we appreciate the meaningful impact of her service.

https://www.vrac.iastate.edu/hci/natasha-lambert-wins-leadership-award/

01/15/2026

Congratulations to our Fall 2025 Graduates in Human Computer Interaction!

The Human Computer Interaction Graduate Program is proud to celebrate the Fall 2025 graduating class. This remarkable group of scholars, designers, researchers, and innovators has contributed meaningfully to the field through their coursework, research, creative components, and theses. Their work re...

12/18/2025

INTERVIEW DAY FOR FALL 2026 PROSPECTIVE HCI STUDENTS

Join us for Interview Day for Prospective HCI Students, an event designed for Fall 2026 applicants interested in pursuing an MS Thesis or PhD in Human Computer Interaction. This event will take place on Tuesday, February 24, at Iowa State University.

Applicants will have the opportunity to meet with HCI faculty members to explore potential research assistantship openings. Apply now to be considered!

Eligibility: Applicants must currently reside in the United States to be eligible for an invitation to this event.

Benefits: All invited Fall 2026 applicants will have their transportation, meals, and lodging fully covered.

Links:

Overview of the Human Computer Interaction Graduate Program ↗️

Doctor of Philosophy in Human Computer Interaction ↗️

The MS in Human Computer Interaction is an interdisciplinary degree program ↗️

10/30/2025

VRAC COLLABORATION: HEAT ALERT APP TARGETS URBAN VULNERABILITY

Researchers at Iowa State, including contributors from VRAC, have piloted a mobile app that warns residents when indoor temperatures reach dangerous levels. The app is part of the NSF-funded CommHEAT project, which combines real-time sensor data and machine learning to predict heat emergencies in homes, especially in underserved urban areas.

VRAC researchers supported the app’s development through data modeling and interface design, helping ensure the tool is both accurate and accessible. The pilot study focused on Des Moines neighborhoods and aims to inform public health responses to extreme heat, now the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S.

🔗 Read the full article
https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/researchers-pilot-potentially-life-saving-heat-alert-app

10/30/2025

RESERACH HIGHTLIGHT: VRAC SUPPORTS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT TRAINING GAME FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

Iowa State University engineers, in collaboration with Polk County Emergency Management, are developing an innovative online training game to help emergency responders prepare for high-impact weather events like derechos. The project is funded by a $700,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Civic Innovation Challenge program.

The game simulates a fast-moving storm hitting a busy urban farmers market. Players take on roles such as firefighters, medical responders, and public works officials, making real-time decisions under pressure. The goal is to improve coordination, resource allocation, and decision-making in disaster scenarios.

Read the full article from Iowa State News:
https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/when-derecho-strikes-engineers-build-emergency-management-training-game

10/30/2025

VRAC FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: MIKO WILFORD

Miko Wilford, associate professor of psychology, is leading research into one of the most consequential yet under-examined aspects of the U.S. criminal justice system: plea bargaining. Her work explores how individuals, including the innocent, are pressured into pleading guilty when faced with stark sentencing disparities. Wilford’s findings reveal that large gaps between plea deals and potential trial sentences can compel even innocent defendants to accept guilt, raising serious concerns about fairness and accuracy in the system.

Her research applies psychological science to uncover how legal actors, often with good intentions, may inadvertently contribute to wrongful convictions. With over 90% of U.S. criminal cases resolved through guilty pleas, Wilford’s work highlights the urgent need for reform grounded in data and human behavior.

🔗 Read the full article
https://research.iastate.edu/faces-of-discovery/miko-wilford/

05/14/2025

NSF REU research project: A data-driven approach to designing a community-focused indoor heat emergency alert system for vulnerable residents

Short Title: CommHEAT

Faculty Mentor:Michael Dorneich ([email protected])
Graduate mentor:Tian Yao ([email protected])
REU Interns: Ruby Thomas, Chukwuma Maduwuba, and Angelica Brito Diaz

The CommHEAT project aims to tackle the severe but often overlooked danger of extreme heat, particularly in vulnerable communities. Extreme heat is hazardous for the elderly and low-income residents who are less likely to have centralized or adequate home cooling. As part of an NSF-funded project, we are developing physics-aware models to predict indoor heat at the street or house level beyond today’s city-wide heat indexes. However, communicating personalized and customized heat information alone is insufficient to change people’s behaviors. This research focuses on how to communicate community-focused indoor heat warnings to residents in such a way as to overcome barriers to action and change behaviors to mitigate heat emergencies. We will research how to best engage community residents through an app that gives residents the information they need to make better decisions. Additionally, the interactions may involve residents and their support networks, including family and caregivers, to help them take necessary actions to prevent heat-related emergencies. This research aims to improve the ability of vulnerable communities to respond effectively to heat emergencies and ensures that action can be taken to safeguard people’s health and well-being.

In this project, REU students would gain hands-on experience developing mobile applications focused on social good, specifically addressing the critical issue of extreme heat in vulnerable communities. The first task would be to understand the problem space and the types of solutions that exist today. The students can develop empathy and have a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by heat vulnerable populations through a user-centered design process. Based on that work, the team would explore the most effective way to present information that can change residents’ adaptive behaviors during heat events. Also, they will focus on creating a community support system to activate residents’ social networks. Technical challenges include translating data from computational models to a representation and interaction design effective for residents, how to activate social support networks, and how to use technology to impact resident behavior. Interns will create an app and deploy it to multiple mobile devices, and operating systems, including smartphones and tablets. Considerations must be made for different screen sizes and resolutions so the interface is effective for all users. The team would then implement a testable demonstration of their design. If time permits, a preliminary formative evaluation with users may be conducted. Finally, the 5-page research paper they write as part of the program would be further developed for publication

Project Title: A data-driven approach to designing a community-focused indoor heat emergency alert system for vulnerable residentsShort Title: CommHEATFacult...

05/02/2025

XR-enabled STEM Curriculum for Teachers
Faculty: Eliot Winer, Kimberly Zarecor, Evrim Baran, Tom Daniels, and Merate Barakat
Graduate mentors: Jorge Yass, Hila Sabouni, Anjali Gali and Mustafa Kilinc
Title: XR-enabled STEM Curriculum for Teachers
Short title: STEM XR
REU Interns: Alee Winters, Andrea Torres, and Rodney Whitney

Summary

The overarching goal of the project will be to take a disciplinary curriculum taught in a classroom setting at the elementary, middle, or high school level and evaluate how different fundamental concepts from the curriculum can be “converted” from traditional in-class instruction to an XR environment to increase student’s engagement, knowledge transfer, and skill retention.

Detailed Description

Interns will facilitate discussions with students and teachers from local high schools to determine a list of candidate disciplinary curriculum that have challenges in student learning and engagement. Three to five example disciplines (e.g., STEM, engineering, architecture) will be recommended, and the interns will identify one to implement based on their research from literature and with students and teachers. Interns will conduct a comprehensive background investigation into the chosen discipline with regards to educator curriculum and accredited university admissions. This investigation will include collecting traditional classroom instruction materials for lesson(s) as well as student and teacher feedback. Interns will identify ways that the disciplinary curriculum lessons can be taught using extended reality (XR) technologies such as virtual and augmented reality. Text instruction and code cannot simply be shown on a user interface element in an XR environment. The primary research challenge will be utilizing 3D objects into an interactive 3D scene to teach concepts from the chosen discipline to excite students while also instructing them. Interns will create a Unity project with different scenes for each lesson and deploy the environment to multiple XR devices. Interns will then collect feedback from students and teachers about the XR-enabled STEM Curriculum.

Faculty: Eliot Winer, Kimberly Zarecor, Evrim Baran, Tom Daniels, and Merate BarakatGraduate mentors: Jorge Yass, Hila Sabouni, Anjali Gali and Mustafa Kilin...

04/30/2025

REU|2024 - The Neural Basis for Curiosity

Faculty: Dr. Elizabeth Stegemoller, Kinesiology
Graduate mentor: Aron Nakama
Title: The Neural Basis for Curiosity
Short title: Curiosity EEG
REU Interns: Lydia Lonzarich, Sophie Meronek, and Harrison Brown

What makes an individual curious? Almost every human has a personal understanding of curiosity, the motivation it causes to seek and wonder, and the continued drive toward developing interests. And yet, we do not have a firm understanding of how to reliably induce curiosity in learning environments and how to maintain curiosity in an attempt to harness curiosity’s apparent benefits. There exists a strong body of evidence to suggest that limited curiosity inductions through trivia and Virtual Reality environmental exploration causes measurable memory enhancement as well as temporally linked physiological phenomena. My thesis project plans to fully characterize the different facets of curiosity in terms of these physiological signatures through Electroencephalography (EEG), Galvanic Skin Response, and Pupilometry. I will then use those characterizations to manipulate curiosity in virtual classroom environments with the intent to increase the frequency of curiosity induction. Wireless EEG headsets will provide the physiological feedback necessary to determine the successful induction of proper curiosity states. I am looking forward to having curious undergrads come together to help me build the virtual environment, develop reliable manipulations in a controlled environment, and help to gather and manage large data sets. I believe this project to be self-motivating as each student will be able to explore their own curiosity.

Faculty: Dr. Elizabeth Stegemoller, KinesiologyGraduate mentor: Aron NakamaTitle: The Neural Basis for CuriosityShort title: Curiosity EEGREU Interns: Lydia...

04/28/2025

We are thrilled to announce and celebrate the recent promotions of our esteemed faculty members:
* Jonathan Claussen - Promotion to Professor (Already Tenured)
* Jan Boyles - Promotion to Professor (Already Tenured)
* Stephen Gilbert - Promotion to Professor (Already Tenured)
* Adarsh Krishnamurthy - Promotion to Professor (Already Tenured)
* Elizabeth Stegemoller - Promotion to Professor (Already Tenured)
* Cody Fleming - Award of Tenure as Associate Professor

01/31/2025

Every summer we get to meet and work with awesome interns from all over the USA in our REU program. Are you going to be one of them next summer?