Cyan

At #BIPOCGames2025, I shared my research highlighting the embodied implications of avatar representation in social VR. I felt inspired this community, the talks, and the critical discussions on games. And the Strong National Museum of Play was amazing!

playstorypress.org/books/procee...

BEASTS: Dual Perspectives on Virtual Puppetry through Theatrical Expression and XR Research | Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference Spati...

At #SIGGRAPH, I had the pleasure of co-presenting with Scarlett Kim, director and creative producer at C.U.T.E., on theatrical and theoretical perspectives on virtual puppetry. We made a call for deeper interdisciplinary engagement between artists and researchers.

dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

This summer at Meta, I had the opportunity to work with the Reality Labs Research Audio Team, conducting UX research on novel audio technologies in immersive environments and helping shape the future of connection in AR and VR.

tech.fb.com/inside-faceb...

Grateful for a summer of research, collaboration, and connecting with XR+game studies communities. Some highlights:

✅ Completed my research scientist internship at Meta Reality Labs Research
✅ Co-presented at the #SIGGRAPH Spatial Storytelling demos
✅ Presented at the BIPOC Game Studies conference

Stanford Virtual Becomes Reality on Meta Quest With Virtual Reality technology widely available, it’s more important than ever to understand its impact on people and society. Explore highlights of over two decades of research from Stanford's Virtu...

Virtual Becomes Reality finally available (for free) on Quest. Take a guided 15-minute tour of the Stanford lab. Fly like a hero, walk the plank, defend coral in Palau, become a QB, dance with Grover, transform identity in the mirror. Now we are bringing the lab to you!

www.meta.com/experiences/...

SIGGRAPH 2025 Experience Hall Ignites the Future of Interaction and Storytelling /PRNewswire/ -- The SIGGRAPH Experience Hall has always been more than a show floor; it's a portal. At SIGGRAPH 2025, that portal opens again, inviting...

BEASTS: Dual Perspectives on Virtual Puppetry through Theatrical Expression and XR Research

Stanford VHIL & C.U.T.E. blend theater & research via live digital puppetry drawing on Korean folklore. Performer creates & becomes shaped by fantastical representations.

www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

GDC Call for Submissions | Game Developers Conference Submit talks for GDC 2026.

Game educators, GDC submissions are due much earlier! (Aug 7). Please submit, I can vouch that the conference is really excited to have educator content and even opened up ideas like workshops and debates. Here's the call: gdconf.com/gdc-call-for... Feel free to reach out to me with any questions 🙂

Career update: Excited to share that I've joined Meta Reality Labs in Redmond, WA as a UX Research Scientist Intern this summer where I will be investigating how humans experience and interact with novel audio technologies in MR/VR 🎧☀️

We used TouchDesigner as a tool for generating the interactive multimedia content. Here's an earlier version where we explored dance improvisation with an interactive particle system. Visuals reflected movements through space, but also shaped the nature of improvisation through it's feedback.

I've been trying to challenge myself to try something new each year. This year, I explored tech + performance as an Assistant Technologist for Stanford TAP’s Spring Rise Up, collaborating on integrating mocap into Raissa Simpson’s Ode to Intimacy piece. Grateful for the experience and amazing team!

STORY: Oliners Collaborate with Local Senior Center on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) Innovations

Students working in Olin’s Pl(ai) Lab, run by @apcuad.bsky.social, assistant professor of computer science, are collaborating with The Center at the Heights, a senior citizen center in Needham, MA, on pioneering #AI technological innovations.

📲 Learn more: www.olin.edu/articles/sto... #CS #AR

Had a wonderful time in Denver, CO attending #ICA25 this past weekend! In addition presenting our research recently published in Computers in Human Behavior, it was so great catching up with colleagues, meeting new people, having insightful discussions, and learning from the sessions I attended.

arts.stanford.edu/art-and-podc...

Art & is a new podcast from Stanford Arts exploring how art drives innovative, collaborative research across campus.

I had the joy of recording an episode on Arts & Digital Embodiment with immersive tech + live performance artist and creative producer, Scarlett Kim.

It's now live! 🎙️ Link below

Now that the ink is dry, I’m thrilled to share that I’ve officially signed the contract for my first academic book with University of California Press!

I feel incredibly lucky and honored that @michellelipinski.bsky.social reached out after encountering my dissertation—we immediately

Congratulations!

Five canonical findings from 30 years of psychological experimentation in virtual reality - Nature Human Behaviour This Review presents five canonical psychological research findings in virtual reality (VR) over the past three decades. These findings have been consistently replicated and are useful for both resear...

Five enduring, in-lab VR results (w/ @stanfordvr.bsky.social): (1) presence depends on activity, (2) self-avatars shape behavior, (3) VR better for procedural than abstract learning,(4) body tracking is powerful but privacy-risky, (5) people underestimate VR distance.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

5 robust, replicated, & meta-analyzed findings from 30 years of psych research in VR. Timeline of events in experiment history, recommendations for consumers & scholars new to the medium, and the DICE model on when to use (and not use) VR.

@nathumbehav.nature.com

vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

How do groups behave in VR?

Monique Santoso coded 9,000 speech acts to develop Virtual Reality Interaction Dynamics Scheme, 10 speech acts (e.g., disagreements, context-dependent commentary). Prior speech acts and current nonverbal behavior predict group action.

vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

Who speaks next?

@PortiaWang.bsky.social analyzed a VR dataset of 77 sessions, 1660 minutes of group meetings over 4 weeks. Verbal & nonverbal history captured at millisecond level predicted turn-taking at nearly 30% over chance. To appear @acm-cscw.bsky.social.

vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

New #cscw paper out with my amazing collaborators! In it, we predicted and analyzed what features saliently predicted turn-taking behaviors in VR 🗣️📢

This week, I had the pleasure of presenting at @baychi.org's monthly speaker program. Drawing from lab studies, field studies, and virtual ethnographic work, I shared my research exploring the role of avatar representation in shaping user experiences in social VR. Thank you for having me!

Tues, Apr 8 @7:30pm PT (Zoom or in person @ Stanford this time): “Immersive Virtual Embodiment: How Avatar Representation Shapes UX in Social VR.“ Cyan DeVeaux, Stanford Communication PhD Candidate, will discuss the effects of avatars in VR & offer design implications. baychi.org/calendar/202...

grateful for this community ❤️

Thank you! :)

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you Danaé! :)

If no one does the work, we'll never know. That's why we're here now.

Thank you so much! It's been such an important research topic to me and I'm excited that I can now share it with others.

Panel of six figures featuring users engaging in VR activities in the presence and absence of virtual mirrors. These activities including getting acquainted with their avatar, socialization, and drawing.

A table featuring a non-exhaustive list of barriers to inclusive avatar embodiment in social VR. Categories in this list are embodied glitches and rendering issues, embodied design bias, disruptions to immersion, and survival tactics for embodied racial harassment.

New paper out! We explore avatar embodiment experiences of 52 Black users in social VR from ethnographic interviews + lab study. Findings unpack embodied consequences of racial representation in immersive VR and how users navigated challenges to expressing identity. vhil.stanford.edu/publications...