CREATE students presented at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 25, 2024. Team members Afnaan Afsar Ali, Noah Olivero, Dhruti Rajesh, Jacob Stolker, and Anika Urbonas presented their work as part of the Project 1 Virtual Reality (VR) project at Illinois. These students were supervised by Drs. George Mois, Avinash Gupta, and Wendy Rogers.

A total of five posters were presented, covering the VR project’s study developments and preliminary findings. Afnaan, Anika, Dhruti, and Noah’s posters focused on using VR to provide older adults with engagement applications to facilitate virtual interactions. Each of them presented a unique aspect of how VR can support older adults. Jacob’s poster explored the seamless integration of mixed and VR into the real world.

This Undergraduate Research Symposium has been held annually on the Illinois campus since 2008 and has grown significantly since. The number of undergraduate students participating has increased from a few hundred in its inaugural year to well over 800 students. For more information on this event, please visit the Undergraduate Research Symposium Website.