Interested in joining the iSpace team?

Interested in con­tribut­ing to inno­v­a­tive research at the inter­sec­tion of Virtual Reality/XR, Psychology/Cognitive Science, Informatics, Human Factors/HCI, AI, and Art/Design in an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team?

I’m always look­ing for bright and moti­vated PhD and MSc stu­dents (and pof course post­docs) to join the iSpace Lab at the School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University in the greater Vancouver region in beau­ti­ful British Columbia on the west coast of Canada, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Coastal Mountain range. Greater Vancouver is one of the most eth­ni­cally diverse areas in Canada and con­sis­tently ranks among the world’s most liv­able cities in the world based on qual­ity of life —espe­cially if you love the out­doors (skiing, hiking, water sports, Yoga, beach volleyball…).

Expectations & potential projects

Applicants should be highly moti­vated and have a strong inter­est in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary sci­en­tific research aligned with the iSpace Lab’s vision (see Vision) and our Projects). Our over­ar­ch­ing goal is design­ing and inves­ti­gat­ing emerg­ing media like Virtual Reality/XR for pos­i­tive impact on indi­vid­u­als and soci­ety. A short overview appears in my TEDx talk “Could Virtual Reality make us more human?” (tech­nol­ogy improved since then, but the vision and opportunities/challenges remained).

In par­tic­u­lar, I am look­ing for stu­dent to work in one of the fol­low­ing areas (some grant-supported / some grants are cur­rently under review/planning):

Designing and investigating intuitive interfaces for embodied flying in VR & teleoperation:

Design & eval­u­ate user-powered motion cueing inter­faces to enable more nat­ural and intu­itive loco­mo­tion through and spa­tial ori­en­ta­tion in VR, for both ground-based nav­i­ga­tion and espe­cially for **full 3D nav­i­ga­tion (**both vir­tual flying and tele-presence/tele-operation appli­ca­tions like drones). One of the aims is to create an empow­er­ing embod­ied and seam­less flying expe­ri­ences, sim­i­lar to and inspired by~lucid dream­ing~, as well improv­ing user expe­ri­ence, usabil­ity, and per­for­mance while min­i­miz­ing motion sick­ness. Why this mat­ters: Moving naturally—on the ground and in the air—unlocks embod­i­ment, presence/immersion, per­for­mance, and acces­si­bil­ity with­out heavy hardware.

• Leaning-based con­trol for ground and flying (hands-free, “HeadJoystick”-style): Leaning-based ground loco­mo­tion, Embodied & Intuitive Flying.
• Hybrid large-space travel with HyperJump to reduce cyber­sick­ness (merge con­tin­u­ous motion with fast jumps to pre­serve comfort/orientation): HyperJump (seam­less travel), HyperJump Flying.
• Concurrent loco­mo­tion + inter­ac­tion (move and act flu­idly): Lightsaber task.
• Telepresence/tele-operation appli­ca­tions (drones, robots): Telepresence.

Tackling Cybersickness - one of the key issues preventing VR/XR from reaching its full potential:

Investigate ways to better assess/ under­stand / mitigate/reduce cyber­sick­ness in VR/XR (and immer­sive tele-presence and tele­op­er­a­tion (incl. first-person view drones), and develop a tool­box for better assess­ing and reduc­ing cyber­sick­ness. Related prior projects include our work on HyperJuming (merg­ing con­tin­u­ous and tele­port­ing into one seam­less inter­face, for ground-based loco­mo­tion as well as embod­ied flying) as well as design­ing more embod­ied and intu­itive VR loco­mo­tion inter­faces that also helped to reduce motion sick­ness, for both  ground-based loco­mo­tion and flying, and inter­faces allow­ing for con­cur­rent loco­mo­tion and inter­ac­tion in VR.

VR comfort & interpretable design models

Why this mat­ters: Comfort is the every­day bot­tle­neck; design­ers need action­able levers and shared lan­guage, not just tips.

• Synthesis & guid­ance: see our expert-sourced work Beyond the Screen: Combating Cybersickness and the Cybersickness course.
• Community knowledge-building:ISMAR 2024 Cybersickness Tutorial and the NoMoSick’24 stan­dard­iza­tion work­shop.
• Design check­lists & talks: curated from the above and inte­grated into ongo­ing projects.

Measuring & mitigating cybersickness (benchmarking & tooling)

Why this mat­ters: Without fair and repeat­able mea­sures, we can’t com­pare mit­i­ga­tions or gen­er­al­ize across labs, con­tent, and users.

• VR Sickness Benchmark (con­trolled, gam­i­fied induc­tion + recov­ery with syn­chro­nized mea­sures): Benchmark System.
• Surveys & com­mu­nity input:Cybersickness Survey.
• Method/tool releases & tuto­ri­als: see also

Designing and investigating Virtual Reality experiences towards enhancing health and wellbeing: 

We are explor­ing how ther­a­peu­tic exer­cises can be imple­mented within a VR inter­ven­tion to gen­er­ate insight towards VR as a ‘pos­i­tive tech­nol­ogy’ for indi­vid­u­als with chronic ill­ness. We are mod­i­fy­ing our exist­ing VR envi­ron­ment used in related recent stud­ies to explore how inte­gra­tion of ther­a­peu­tic exer­cises may enhance sub­jec­tive and psy­cho­log­i­cal well­be­ing. Additionally, we will add fea­tures of inter­ac­tiv­ity such as biosen­sors and sensor-driven machine learning/procedural gen­er­a­tion of visu­als towards enhanc­ing the per­son­al­iza­tion, emo­tion elic­i­ta­tion, and immer­sion of the VR inter­ven­tion. We will inte­grate the lens of indi­vid­u­als who will be the users of the VR inter­ven­tion, with their par­tic­i­pa­tion and input cen­tral to the exploratory research process. Practical out­comes will be the devel­op­ment of an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary frame­work for design of the VR inter­ven­tion and result­ing pilot VR inter­ven­tion will be eval­u­ated for early indi­ca­tors of fea­si­bil­ity within tar­geted end users. This project pro­vides a unique oppor­tu­nity for inter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion and knowl­edge trans­la­tion between human-computer inter­ac­tion, clin­i­cal prac­tice, and health sciences.

VR4Good/XR4Good:

More gen­er­ally, how we can bring together immer­sive vir­tual reality/XR with artistic/creative prac­tices and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies such as AI and bio/neurosensing to pro­vide users with pro­found and mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences that have a pos­i­tive impact (on humans, soci­ety and/or our planet)?

While we’re always open to a vari­ety of projects, we’re also specif­i­cally look­ing for stu­dents to specif­i­cally join our SSHRC-funded project on “Empowering Emerging Adults through Compassion and Enhanced Social Connection: Co-creating a Compassionate Connection Oasis VR Toolkit (ccOa­sisVR Toolkit) and a new project on lever­ag­ing VR/XR and AI for expo­sure ther­apy for PTSD treatment.

Why this mat­ters: Thoughtfully designed VR can sup­port calm, con­nec­tion, agency, com­pas­sion, reflec­tion and more — ben­e­fits that matter beyond enter­tain­ment. Examples include:

• Meditative & breath-centred expe­ri­ences: BRieFLY, Breath of Light, Sensorium.
• Awe, self-transcendence & nature con­nec­tion: Awedyssey, Virtual Earthgazing, SIRIUS—Earthgazing in iso­la­tion, self-transcendent VR expe­ri­ences, awe-inspiring well­ness envi­ron­ment (AWE). 
• Prosocial con­nec­tion & com­pas­sion: ccOa­sisVR Toolkit, Being in Virtual Worlds, Echoes of Me, Design for Genuine Connection.
• Bio-responsive & cre­ative XR: JeL, LucidLoop, Synedelica, Body Remixer, Virtual Transcendent Dream, StarStuff.

Other related prior projects include our work on Design Strategies for Genuine Connection, Virtual Earthgazing to tap into and better inves­ti­gate the ben­e­fits of the Overview effect and other awe-inspiring and self-transcendent VR expe­ri­ences, and immer­sive experiences/installations such as Virtual Transcendent Dream,JeL, LucidLoop, Body Remixer, StarStuff,  Synedelica, Breath of Light, etc.

Gamified research (researchified games)

Why this mat­ters: Gameful tasks boost engage­ment and eco­log­i­cal valid­ity while pre­serv­ing exper­i­men­tal control.

• Representative: Gamified Research.

Spatial cognition & vection (foundations)

Why this mat­ters: Understanding self-motion per­cep­tion, spa­tial updat­ing, and mul­ti­sen­sory cues grounds every­thing above.

• Reviews & par­a­digms: Multisensory con­tri­bu­tions to vec­tion, Embodied Self-Motion Illusions (Vection), Lean & Elegant Motion Cueing, Transition into VR.
• Applied exam­ples: HeadJoystick, HyperJump, Concurrent loco­mo­tion & inter­ac­tion.

And more - see our Projects page

note that we often put ongo­ing research online only once we have a first publication/exhibit.

 

Do you fit in?

As the iSpace Lab works at the inter­sec­tion of Informatics, Psychology/Cognitive Science, HCI/Interaction Design/UX, AI, and VR/XR, you should bring a strong back­ground in at least one of these and be excited to expand into the others. We value programming/computational lit­er­acy (Unity/OpenXR; some­times Vizard/CityEngine), clever exper­i­men­tal design & sta­tis­tics (JMP/SPSS/Python/R; see IAT 802), clear writing/presentation, and proac­tiv­ity + team­work. Technical “maker” skills and VR hard­ware expe­ri­ence are a plus. See theses I super­vise—we favour the cumu­la­tive thesis model (paper-based) so you get to share your work, get con­nected, and grad­u­ally build up your thesis early on instead of having to write a huge mono­graph at the end. Working in an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team can have it’s own chal­lenges, but it is also incred­i­bly reward­ing, espe­cially for people with high proac­tiv­ity, enthu­si­asm & per­se­ver­ance, and good com­mu­ni­ca­tion and team/interpersonal skills — and a good sense of humour.

Funding

Students: Funding typ­i­cally com­bines teach­ing assist­ant­ships, scholarships/fellowships, and research assist­ant­ships; stu­dents often present at suit­able venues, with travel sup­port when possible.

Postdocs: No fully funded posi­tions at the moment, but I’d be happy to sup­port strong appli­cants in apply­ing for exter­nal fel­low­ships (e.g. Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) pro­gram ($70,000/year), see also SFU’s post­Doc fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties page) and pro­vide lim­ited bridg­ing sup­port where feasible.

How to apply

Email  me () with sub­ject: Prospective [MSc/PhD/Postdoc] — [Your Name] — [Project Area/interest]

Please include:

• CV (with pub­li­ca­tions, if any) and links (e.g., GitHub, linkedIn, online port­fo­lio, videos/demos/talks, google scholar page).
  • please indi­cate if you have Canadian cit­i­zen­ship or per­ma­nent res­i­dency as that’s useful to know — it opens up more oppor­tu­ni­ties for scholarships/funding.
• your research inter­ests and how they fit into our lab and relate to the above research areas or prior/ongoing projects (you do not need a con­crete research pro­posal — it’s typ­i­cally best devel­oped together)
• Unofficial tran­scripts and any other rel­e­vant materials.

Briefly indi­cate your programming/VR/stats back­ground and any schol­arly writ­ing expe­ri­ence. Positions are com­pet­i­tive; January is the typ­i­cal dead­line for a September start, but out­stand­ing off-cycle can­di­dates may be con­sid­ered. Our lab values the diver­sity of its com­mu­nity and is com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing an inclu­sive envi­ron­ment for all mem­bers. We wel­come appli­ca­tions from all qual­i­fied indi­vid­u­als, regard­less of race, color, reli­gion, sex, sexual ori­en­ta­tion, gender iden­tity, national origin, age, or dis­abil­ity. We believe that a diverse and trans­dis­ci­pli­nary team enriches our research and enhances cre­ativ­ity and inno­va­tion. We are ded­i­cated to pro­vid­ing equal oppor­tu­ni­ties and ensur­ing that our selec­tion process is fair and unbi­ased. Join us in our mis­sion to push the bound­aries of knowl­edge in a sup­port­ive and inclu­sive environment.

I’d be happy to arrange a Zoom inter­view if there seems to be a good fit. Review of mate­ri­als is ongo­ing until posi­tions are filled. I look for­ward to your appli­ca­tion!
Bernhard

Prospective grad stu­dents: Admission deci­sions are made by SIAT’s Graduate Admission Committee and SFU’s Dean of Graduate Studies. You must sat­isfy SIAT/SFU require­ments. Please check SIAT grad admis­sions and con­tact me before sub­mit­ting your appli­ca­tion. Off-cycle admis­sions are pos­si­ble for excel­lent can­di­dates. Please men­tion my name in your SIAT application.

If you have already research ideas when apply­ing, great! If not, and you are just really excited about con­tribut­ing to our research agenda and vision (and are capa­ble in doing so), that also fine, and we should dis­cuss ideas before you write your “letter of intent” to make sure it will be a good mutual match. In either case, please check the iSpace research agenda and vision and our recent projects and pub­li­ca­tions and talks/demos in our YouTube Channel) to get a better idea of our research scope and approaches (although I’m always inter­ested in expand­ing into new excit­ing research areas).

What is SIAT & SFU?

Check out the SIAT web­site or SIAT’s YouTube chan­nel.
Simon Fraser University (SFU) ranks among the top uni­ver­si­ties in Canada. Our lab is part of SIAT, a vibrant, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary school with research in HCI, inter­ac­tion design, media arts, and more. We are at SFU Surrey (directly on the SkyTrain line) in Metro Vancouver—ocean, moun­tains, art, diverse food, coffee, and of course hockey.

Conferences we like to attend and publish in

(See the pub­li­ca­tions page for details, below are just a few examples)

• SIGCHI
• IEEE VR
• DIS
• SAP/APGV
• Plus many others; talks at TEDxEastVan, TEDxSFU, etc.

 

 

Contact Info

School of Interactive Arts + Technology (SIAT)
Simon Fraser University Surrey
250 –13450 102 Avenue Surrey, BC V3T 0A3 CANADA

iSpace Lab (aka Alternate Realities Lab): SUR 3800 & 3850 (3^rd floor)
my office: SUR 2770 (2^nd floor)

Campus Guide & Maps & SIAT Contacts/Infos & SIAT direc­tions

Directions by Skytrain: take the expo line direc­tion King George, exit at Surrey Central, walk across the park­ing lot to the tall office tower (with the SFU sign above the Blenz), take the wide stairs/escalator up to the Mezzanine (=2^nd) floor.
Take a right for my office (2770) which is in the SIAT cor­ri­dor, or walk up to the 3^rd floor and take a right for the iSpace lab (room 3800/3850).

Note that the ele­va­tor won’t let you exit on the 2^nd or 3^rd floor.

phone: we don’t have office phones any more, so just text/message/email

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