Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA)

Supported by five collaborative grants from the National Science Foundation, the Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA) project will develop and operate CISE  community research infrastructure in the form of a human-machine system for carrying out human subjects research related to extended reality (XR), including Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

More about VERA.
About the VERA logo.

To serve the community of XR researchers by providing tools to accelerate and improve the quality of their human subjects research, building and sustaining a diverse and inclusive collaborative community of XR researchers, and fostering the next generation of XR researchers.

[28 MAR 2024] The 2024 VERA Community Committees are out!
[27 FEB 2024] The VERA Accessibility Survey is out!
News from 2023

Principal Investigators

• • Greg WELCH (Lead PI), University of Central Florida
  • Shiri AZENKOT, Cornell Tech
  • Jeremy BAILENSON (Director of Community Outreach), Stanford University
  • Gerd BRUDER, University of Central Florida
  • Tabitha PECK, Davidson College
  • Valerie Jones TAYLOR, Rutgers University

Investigators

• • Jonathan BEEVER (Ethics and Privacy), University of Central Florida
  • Nicholas Alvaro COLES (Big Team Science, Director PSA), Stanford University
  • Carolina Cruz-NEIRA (Partnerships, Sustainability), University of Central Florida
  • John MURRAY (Systems, Sustainability), University of Central Florida
  • Rui XIE (Statistics and Data Science), University of Central Florida

Development and Operations

• • Ali Haskins Lisle, Director of Development and Operations, University of Central Florida
  • Wes Lorenzini, Senior Software Lead, University of Central Florida
  • Dylan Fox, Accessibility Lead and XR Access Director of Operations

Additional Support

• • Ryan SCHUBERT, Special Projects Coordinator, University of Central Florida
  • Alex MOLINA, Administrative Assistant to Prof. Greg Welch, University of Central Florida

External Advisors

• • Anthony STEED, Senior Technical Advisor, University College London

Student Teams

• • UCF 2023–2024 Computer Science Senior Design Team, "VERA Locomotion Accessibility Toolkit"
    • Team: Parsa Baghaie, Corey Clements, Josh Federmann, Adam Lei, Christian Merino, and Oliver Wacker
    • Advisors: Greg Welch and Dylan Fox

Outreach and Engagement Committee

Chaired by Jeremy Bailenson, focuses on broad community involvement and building/growing a diverse user community.

DEIA Committee

Chaired by Valerie Jones Taylor and Dylan Fox, focuses on project-wide DEIA efforts.

Ethics and Privacy Committee

Chaired by Jonathan Beever, focuses on potential ethical concerns related to engagement, research participation and data reuse, and platform design.

Participant Pool Committee

Chaired by Tabitha Peck, focuses on all matters related to the participant pool including demographics, payments, IRB approvals, and the inclusion of vulnerable populations.

Systems and Operations Committee

Chaired by Gerd Bruder and John Murray, focuses on development and operations of VERA systems, services, and tools.

The VERA Community Advisory Board (CAB) provides strategic perspectives, critical thinking, and specific advice to the entire VERA organization.

• VERA mail lists
• VERA on LinkedIn
• VERA on Twitter (X)

• 2022 VERA Summary
• Open Information & Discussion (06 APR 2022, 0900 EDT and 1500 EDT)
• IEEE VR 2022 Panel & Discussion (15 MAR 2022, 0930 NZDT)
• ISMAR 2021 Panel & Discussion (07 OCT 2021, 1615 CEST)
• ISMAR 2022 Workshop on Inclusive and Generalizable Human Subject Research in XR  (17 OCT 2022)

27 FEB 2024

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 2235066.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.