Roshan Venkatakrishnan

As an aspiring XR research scientist, I use a human-centered approach leveraging virtual, augmented, and mixed reality environments to understand human perception and action. I specialize in researching user representations and their effects on the perception of action capabilities in the near field in an attempt to improve XR design and the user experience. Outside my dissertation, I am also interested in research that spans topics including full body self-avatars and tracking; depth, auditory, size, and temperature perception; cybersickness; virtual humans; and tangible entities. I have and am currently working on different projects giving me the opportunity to establish an eclectic mixture of highly successful interdisciplinary collaborations with experts from psychology, neuroscience, computer vision and graphics, digital production, and cyber innovators at an international and multi-institutional level. My goal with collaborative research is to enhance the user experience in these XR environments, ultimately making the promise of XR, a reality!

https://rvenkat.myportfolio.com

• Member, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society for Academic Excellence (2017-Present)
• Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) (2019-Present)
• Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) (2020-Present)
• Member, American Psychological Association (APA) (2023)

• Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Canales, R., Raveendranath, B., Pagano, C. C., Robb, A. C., Lin, W. C., & Babu, S. V. (2024). Investigating the Effects of Avatarization and Interaction Techniques on Near-field Mixed Reality Interactions with Physical Components. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. (Accepted)
• Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Raveendranath, B., Canales, R., Sarno., D. M., Robb, A. C., Lin, W. C., & Babu, S. V. (2024). The Effects of Secondary Task Demands on Cybersickness in Active Exploration Virtual Reality Experiences. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. (Accepted)
• Lucaites, K. M., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., & Pagano, C. C. (2023). Generalizing the optic flow equalization control law to an asymmetrical person-plus-object system. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 85(7), 2337-2355.
• Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Raveendranath, B., Sarno, D. M., Robb, A. C., Lin, W. C., & Babu, S. V. (2023). The Effects of Auditory, Visual, and Cognitive Distractions on Cybersickness in Virtual Reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.
• Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Raveendranath, B., Pagano, C. C., Robb, A. C., Lin, W. C., & Babu, S. V. (2023). Give Me a Hand: Improving the Effectiveness of Near-field Augmented Reality Interactions By Avatarizing Users' End Effectors. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 29(5), 2412-2422.
• Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Raveendranath, B., Pagano, C. C., Robb, A. C., Lin, W. C., & Babu, S. V. (2023). How Virtual Hand Representations Affect the Perceptions of Dynamic Affordances in Virtual Reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 29(5), 2258-2268.
• Bhargava, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Lucaites, K., Solini, H., Robb, A. C., ... & Babu, S. V. (2023). Can I Squeeze Through? Effects of Self-Avatars and Calibration in a Person-Plus-Virtual-Object System on Perceived Lateral Passability in VR. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 29(5), 2348-2357.
• *Venkatakrishnan, R., *Venkatakrishnan, R., Chung, C. H., Wang, Y. S., & Babu, S. (2022). Investigating a combination of input modalities, canvas geometries, and inking triggers on on-air handwriting in virtual reality. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 19(4), 1-19.
• Bhargava, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Solini, H., Lucaites, K., Robb, A. C., ... & Babu, S. V. (2021). Did I hit the door? Effects of self-avatars and calibration in a person-plus-virtual-object system on perceived frontal passability in VR. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 28(12), 4198-4210.
• Lucaites, K. M., Venkatakrishnan, R., Bhargava, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., & Pagano, C. C. (2020). Predicting aperture crossing behavior from within-trial metrics of motor control reliability. Human Movement Science, 74, 102713.
• Lucaites, K.M., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Bhargava, A. and Pagano, C.C., 2020. Predictability and Variability of a Dynamic Environment Impact Affordance Judgments. Ecological Psychology, pp.1-20.
• *Lin, Y. X., *Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Ebrahimi, E., Lin, W. C., & Babu, S. V. (2020). How the presence and size of static peripheral blur affects cybersickness in virtual reality. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP), 17(4), 1-18.
• Volonte, M., Anaraky, R.G., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Knijnenburg, B.P., Duchowski, A.T. and Babu, S.V., 2020. Empirical evaluation and pathway modeling of visual attention to virtual humans in an appearance fidelity continuum. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces, pp.1-11.

* equal contribution

• Lin W., Venkatakrishnan R., Venkatakrishnan R., Pagano, C., Babu S., & Lin W.C. (2023). Empirical Evaluation of Calibrating Auditory Depth Perception Under Different Levels of Environment Visibility in Virtual Reality. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics. (Accepted)
• Tolchinsky, M., Venkatakrishnan R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Pagano, C., & Babu, S. Empirical Evaluation of the Effects of Visuo-Auditory Perceptual Information on Head Oriented Tracking of Dynamic Objects in VR. In 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). (Accepted for publication)
• Bhargava, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Solini, H., Lucaites, K., Robb, A. C., ... & Babu, S. V. (2023, March). Empirically Evaluating the Effects of Eye Height and Self-Avatars on Dynamic Passability Affordances in Virtual Reality. In 2023 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 308-317). IEEE.
• Lin, W. Y., Wang, Y. C., Wu, D. R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Ebrahimi, E., ... & Lin, W. C. (2022, March). Empirical Evaluation of Calibration and Long-term Carryover Effects of Reverberation on Egocentric Auditory Depth Perception in VR. In 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 232-240). IEEE.
• *Huang, Y. H., *Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Babu, S. V., & Lin, W. C. (2021, September). Using Audio Reverberation to Compensate Distance Compression in Virtual Reality. In ACM Symposium on Applied Perception 2021 (pp. 1-10).
• Hsu, C. H., Chung, C. H., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Wang, Y. S., & Babu, S. V. (2021, March). Comparative Evaluation of Digital Writing and Art in Real and Immersive Virtual Environments. In 2021 IEEE Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 1-10). IEEE.
• de Siqueira, A. G., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Bharqava, A., Lucaites, K., Solini, H., ... & Babu, S. V. (2021, March). Empirically Evaluating the Effects of Perceptual Information Channels on the Size Perception of Tangibles in Near-Field Virtual Reality. In 2021 IEEE Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 1-10). IEEE.
• Gomes de Siqueira, A., Bhargava, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., & Venkatakrishnan, R. (2021, February). PPCards: Toward Enhancing Electronic Prototyping with Editions of a Card-based Platform. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (pp. 1-11).
• Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Bhargava, A., Lucaites, K., Solini, H., Volonte, M., ... & Lin, Y. X. (2020, March). Comparative evaluation of the effects of motion control on cybersickness in immersive virtual environments. In 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 672-681). IEEE.
• Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Anaraky, R. G., Volonte, M., Knijnenburg, B., & Babu, S. V. (2020, March). A structural equation modeling approach to understand the relationship between control, cybersickness and presence in virtual reality. In 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 682-691). IEEE.

* equal contribution

• Raveendranath, B., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Pagano, C., & Babu, S. (2023). Cross recurrence analysis of a ball retrieval task in Virtual Reality. Journal of Vision, 23(9), 5031-5031.
• Lin, Y. X., Babu, S. V., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Wang, Y. C., & Lin, W. C. (2020, March). Towards an Immersive Virtual Simulation for Studying Cybersickness during Spatial Knowledge Acquisition. In 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW) (pp. 624-625). IEEE.
• Lucaites, K., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Bhargava, A., & Pagano, C. C. (2019, November). Perceptions of Passability Through Dynamically Moving Gaps. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 63, No. 1, pp. 1941-1942). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
• Venkatakrishnan, R., Bhargava, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., Lucaites, K. M., Volonte, M., Solini, H., ... & Babu, S. V. (2019, March). Towards an immersive driving simulator to study factors related to cybersickness. In 2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 1201-1202). IEEE.

• de Siqueira, A. G., Bhargava, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Lucaites, K., Solini, H., Nasiri, M., Robb, A., Ullmer, B., Pagano, C., & Babu, S. Empirically Evaluating the Effects of Calibration Perturbations on the Near-field Size Perception of Graspable Tangible Objects in VR. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. (Under Review)
• Murmu, C., Kohm, K.C., Solini, H., Gluck, A., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Pagano, C., Robb, A., & Babu, S. An Empirical Evaluation of Steering Metaphor and Field of View on Travel and Cornering Efficiency and Effectiveness in Virtual Reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. (Under Review)
• Raveendranath, B., Venkatakrishnan R., Venkatakrishnan R.,, Pagano, C., & Babu, S. Perceptual information for an object retrieval task in virtual reality. Journal of Vision. (Under Review)
• Chen, Y., Wong, S., Volonte, M., Ebrahimi, E., Schlesener, E., Venkatakrishnan R., Venkatakrishnan R., & Babu, S. Investigation of Users' Non-Verbal Behaviors and Emotions in Performing Goal-Oriented Tasks in Emergency Scenarios in Virtual Reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. (Under Review)

* equal contribution 

• Best Paper Award for the paper titled “How Virtual Hand Representations Affect the Perceptions of Dynamic Affordances in Virtual Reality” (IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, Shanghai, 2023)
• Honorable Mention for the Best Paper Award for the paper titled “Give Me a Hand: Improving the Effectiveness of Near-field Augmented Reality Interactions By Avatarizing Users' End Effectors (IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, Shanghai, 2023)
• Best Paper Award for the paper titled “Investigating a combination of input modalities, canvas geometries, and inking triggers on on-air handwriting in virtual reality” (ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 2022)
• Best Presentation Award for the paper titled “Using Audio Reverberation to Compensate Distance Compression in Virtual Reality” (ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 2021)
• Best Paper Award for the paper titled “How the Presence and Size of Static Peripheral Blur Affects Cybersickness in Virtual Reality” (ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 2020)
• Honorable Mention for the Best Presentation Award - “How the Presence and Size of Static Peripheral Blur Affects Cybersickness in Virtual Reality (ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 2020)
• Most Interesting Demo Award - “ROW VR- Can Competing with Someone Make You Perform Better?” (Virtual Reality Systems Course-Clemson University, 2018)
• Runner Up - Clemson University Graduate Research and Discovery Symposium (2022)
• Clemson University Grants:
  Tiger Grant ($15000) - Awarded for the study of Thermoception in XR Environments (2020)
  Human Factors Institute Grant - Awarded for Human Factors Research Projects (2019, 2020)
  Graduate Travel Grant - Awarded (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023)

• Editorial Board Member - Frontiers in Virtual Reality (2023-Current)
• Peer Reviewer

           Journals: IEEE TVCG, ACM TAP, Springer MTAP (2021-Current)

           Conferences: IEEE VR, ACM SAP, IEEE ISMAR (2020-Current)

• Student Volunteer, IEEEVR (2019,2020)
• Chief of Staff, Clemson University Graduate Student Government (2021-Current)
• President Pro Tempore, Clemson University Graduate Student Government (2020-2021)
• Graduate Student Peer Mentor, Clemson University (2020-Current)
• Bridge to Doctorate Mentor, Clemson University (2022)
• Virtual Reality Simulation Demonstrations Co-Lead, Clemson University (2018-Current)
• Judging Committee, Clemson University Focus on Creative Inquiry (2023)
• Finalist, Clemson University Graduate Research and Discovery Symposium (2020-2022)

Certificate in Engineering and Science Education, Clemson University (2022)

• Applying research-based current best practices in teaching and mentoring students in post-secondary STEM disciplines.
• Practical experience in interactive lecturing with active learning strategies, factoring in diversity, equity, and inclusion to broaden participation and improve learning outcomes.