Trent Simmons
Boston,MA
Summary
I am a creative and highly motivated fianl-year PhD candidate researching human visual perception and motor-control using AR/VR and eye-tracking technology. I develop custom applications that intrinsically target specific psychophysical characteristics of various human populations. I have a proven track record of designing dynamic experiments capable of measuring complex visual and behavioral data from time-synchronized sensory-enabled technologies.
Overview
8
8
years of professional experience
Work History
XR Community Director
Northeastern University
Boston, MA
05.2022 - Current
- Cultivated a community of students and faculty interested in XR technology on platforms like Discord.
- Orchestrated the first-ever Northeastern XR Hackathon for the students.
- Ran public weekly meetings and Unity development streams on quality and safe XR development.
PhD Candidate
Northeastern University
Boston, MA
05.2020 - Current
- Capable of conducting a full research lifecycle outline individually below.
- Stayed abreast of current developments in human visual perception and XR-based experimentation.
- Found relevant and actionable gaps in knowledge to use as aims for scientific experimentation.
- Continuously incorporate current developments in human visual perception and XR-based technology into scientific experimentation.
- Developed novel Unity and MATLAB software applications combining VR/AR and eye-tracking technology to evaluate hypotheses.
- Constructed data architectures to facilitate robust and effective data collection and analysis.
- Collected data from challenging human populations, effectively navigating obstacles in participant cooperation and data reliability.
- Conducted through exploration, validation and cleaning of raw data.
- Analyzed data using statistical methods and libraries in R and Python and Trained machine learning learning models on psychophysiological data for predictive and classification based outcomes.
- Created illustrative data visualizations for publications, presentations, and conferences.
Lead Developer /Research Associate
UC San Diego
San Diego, CA
01.2017 - 05.2020
- Managed a team of developers to ensure timely completion of projects.
- Composed detailed project plans, timelines, and milestones for development projects.
- Participated in Agile ceremonies such as sprint planning meetings, daily standups, and retrospectives.
- Communicated complex computer information in terminology that non-technical individuals could easily understand.
- Mentored interns and junior software developers through training, design reviews, and code reviews.
- Developed eye-tracking based Unity applications using C# programming language.
- Delivered code to meet functional or technical specifications.
- Oversaw team of developers to strictly enforce software guidelines and deliver highest quality work.
- Designed interfaces between multiple applications ensuring seamless data exchange across platforms.
- Resolved any conflicts between development teams or stakeholders during the course of the project.
Education
Ph.D. - Human Movement And Rehabilitation Science
Northeastern University
Boston, MA2025
Bachelor of Science - Psychology / Neuroscience
Denver University
Denver, CO05.2017
Skills
- C# / R / Python / Matlab
- Unity Development
- Data Modeling and Analysis
- XR Application and Game Development
- Project Management
- Scientific Literature Review
- Research Methodology
- Scientific Writing / Publication
- Eye-Tracking development
- Motion-Capture development
- Eye-Tracking Technology: Tobii, EyeTech, Pupil Labs
- XR- Technology: Oculus-pro, Vive Pro Eye
Accomplishments
XR and eye-tracking first author papers:
- The Effects of Social Presence on Gaze, Movement, Arousal and Blink Rate in Autism: A Cooperative Virtual Reality Game-Based Approach. IEEE Transactions on Games.
- IEEE CoG 2023 Best Paper Award.
- Measuring gaze behavior to characterize spatial awareness skill in Rocket League. In 2023 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) (pp. 1-8). IEEE. Chicago
- Three eye-tracking / VR manuscripts are currently in progress (happy to disscus!).
- Society for Neuroscience poster (2021, 2022, 2023).
- Computational Cognitive Neuroscience 2024 paper acceptance.
Other accomplishments of note:
- Stanford Machine Learning specialization course completion (2023)
- iLRN 2021 Virtual Reality hackathon winner.
- 2022 CMU BrianPlay conference speaker & demo presenter.
- Panelistt for Tuffs Future of XR Based Health Technology.
Timeline
XR Community Director
Northeastern University
05.2022 - Current
PhD Candidate
Northeastern University
05.2020 - Current
Lead Developer /Research Associate
UC San Diego
01.2017 - 05.2020
Ph.D. - Human Movement And Rehabilitation Science
Northeastern University
Bachelor of Science - Psychology / Neuroscience
Denver University
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