REU Site: Research in Interactive Virtual Experiences

本科生研究体验 (REU) 网站更新的目标是每年夏天吸引 10 名本科生参与南加州大学创意技术研究所，这是一个独特的多学科研究社区，汇集了计算机科学、心理学、通信、电影艺术和医学领域的领先学术研究人员。参与者将参与专注于该研究所交互式虚拟体验核心主题的合作研究团队，并在虚拟现实、叙事、虚拟人类、自然语言对话和图形等领域开展具体项目。这些活动将与每周一次的互动研讨会相结合，以提供最佳研究实践、指导支持和同行反馈方面的培训。 研究人员开发的技巧和技术推动了引人注目的合成环境和角色的创建，这些环境和角色与培训、教育、康复和医学等广泛的应用领域直接相关。本科生将参加强调跨学科研究的暑期体验，其目标是扩大计算机领域代表性不足的人群的参与，并使本科生有机会获得科学和工程研究生课程的机会。这项工作有可能帮助本科生做好独立研究的准备，从而增加计算机博士课程的入学率和保留率。

The objective of this Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site renewal is to engage 10 undergraduate students per summer at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, a unique multidisciplinary research community that combines leading academic researchers in computer science, psychology, communications, cinematic arts, and medicine. Participants will be immersed in collaborative research teams focused on the institute's core theme of interactive virtual experiences, with specific projects in areas such as virtual reality, narrative, virtual humans, natural language dialogue, and graphics. These activities will be combined with weekly interactive seminars for training in best research practices, mentorship support, and peer feedback. The techniques and technologies developed by the researchers drive the creation of compelling synthetic environments and characters with immediate relevance to a broad range of application domains including training, education, rehabilitation, and medicine. The undergraduate students will become engaged in summer experiences that emphasize interdisciplinary research, with the goals of broadening participation from underrepresented populations in computing and exposing undergraduate students to opportunities in science and engineering graduate programs. This effort has the potential to prepare undergraduates to perform independent research, thereby increasing enrollment and retention in computing doctoral programs.