Mujdat Cetin, interim director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science, and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation

Mujdat Cetin, interim director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to train 62 PhD students in the skills they need to advance AR/VR technologies and also to help them gain an appreciation for the broader cultural and societal implications of doing so.

Typically, PhD students researching AR/VR “are educated only in the teaching practices of their own department or their faculty advisor,” Mujdat says. “But they never get perspectives on other aspects of AR/VR.” A computer science student trained in human-computer interfaces, for example, may not be able to make a meaningful contribution to a VR rehabilitation system due to insufficient exposure to the biomedical engineering and neuroscience aspects of the problem.

This grant will help address that with new courses giving trainees a broader perspective and a chance to work collaboratively on AR/VR projects with students from other disciplines. In addition, trainees will participate in internships at companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Vuzix, which have provided letters of support for the program.

This is a very exciting development. Congratulations to Mujdat;  to co-PIs Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering; Michele Rucci, professor of brain and cognitive sciences; and Zhen Bai, assistant professor of computer science; and to Hajim faculty participants Zhiyao Duan, Chenliang Xu, Yuhao Zhu, Ross Maddox, and Andrew White. Read more here.

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