Christopher You

About me

👋 Hi, there! I'm Christopher, a fifth year PhD student focusing on on virtual reality, virtual humans, embodiment and machine learning to promote health and wellbeing for marginalized populations. I am completing my Human-Centered Computing PhD at the University of Florida with Dr. Benjamin Lok in the VERG Lab.

LIVE BOBA CAM

If I'm not working on a paper, grant, or app, (hopefully) you can find me outdoors, traveling, spending a tad too much money on boba, or spending a tad too much time on Boba (my cat). If not seen in more than 24 hours, please check the UF VERG Lab for a sleeping PhD student at his desk.

I'm actively pursuing opportunities in the field of virtual avatars, virtual agents, human-computer interaction, machine learning, embodiment, and AR/VR/XR technologies.

Research Interests

Virtual Reality

Project(s): Embodiment
Aritificial Intelligence

Project(s): Clinical Trial Enrollment Project
Virtual Humans

Project(s): Virtual Human-Guided Embodied Conversations
Mental Health & Healthcare

Project(s): Virtual Human Motivational Interviews to Improve Mental Health Readiness to Change

Resume

Download CV

Education

Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing, University of Florida
Aug 2020 — August 2025
Department of Computer and Information Science Engineering

Advisor: Dr. Benjamin Lok
M.S. in Computer Science, University of Florida
Aug 2020 — Dec 2022
Department of Computer and Information Science Engineering

Advisor: Dr. Benjamin Lok
B.S. in Computer Science, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Sep 2018 — May 2020
College of Science and Engineering

Advisor: Dr. Evan Suma Rosenberg

Experience

Research Assistant, Virtual Experiences Research Group
Aug 2020 — Present
• Embodied interactions in virtual reality and virtual human conversations.

• AI-driven virtual humans to support mental health conversations

• Tailored virutal human education to support clinical trial enrollment for underrepresented populations (R24/U01 Grant)

• Virtual human platform to help those with psychiatric disorders interact with healthcare providers (Get Prepd Psychiatry Grant)
Research Assistant, Davidson DRiVE Lab
May 2022 — Aug 2022
• Mentored undergraduate students in VR/AR development via Unity in virtual embodiment, flight simulation, and UX/UI design

• Concurrently developing two applications via Unity for embodiment in VR to study implicit bias and sense of embodiment; two publications developed in collaboration with DRiVE Lab.
Software Development Engineer Interventions, Amazon
May 2020 — Aug 2020
• Developed auto-complete feature for Amazon Help Services to be incorporated into services such as Alexa Help Domain and Amazon Customer Service Help Search.

• Utilized a knowledge graph to generate results by natural language processing, synonym mapping, SPARQL, and front-end UI development
Research Assistant, Illusioneering Lab
Oct 2018 — May 2020
• Created virtual environments in Unity to prototype and study redirected walking techniques in virtual reality. Published poster (2019) and paper (2022).

• Worked with graduate students to conduct pilot tests for studies, participate in lab meetings, conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis, and assist with human studies in VR.

Articles

Published Manuscripts

Journal Articles

[1] You, C., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Han, Z., Lok, B., & Peck, T. (2024). A Sense of Urgency on the Sense of Agency: Challenges in Evaluating Agency and Embodiment in Virtual Reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[2] You, C., Peck, T., Stuart, J., Gomes de Siqueira, A., & Lok, B. (2024). What my bias meant for my embodiment: an investigation on virtual embodiment in desktop-based virtual reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 5, 1251564.
Conference Articles

[3] You, C., Benda, B., Rosenberg, E. S., Ragan, E., Lok, B., & Thomas, J. (2022, October). Strafing gain: Redirecting users one diagonal step at a time. In 2022 IEEE international symposium on mixed and augmented reality (ISMAR) (pp. 603-611). IEEE.

[4] You, C., Ghosh, R., Maxim, A., Stuart, J., Cooks, E., & Lok, B. (2022, September). How does a virtual human earn your trust? guidelines to improve willingness to self-disclose to intelligent virtual agents. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (pp. 1-8).
Extended Abstracts, Posters, & Demos

[6] Ghosh, R., Maxim, A., You, C., & Lok, B. (2024, March). Real-Time Virtual Human for Promoting Clinical Trial Education and Recruitment. In 2024 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW) (pp. 1184-1185). IEEE.

[7] Jurczyk, K., You, C., Nourani, M., Gupta, M., Anthony, L., & Lok, B. (2021, October). Romadoro: Leveraging Nudge Techniques to Encourage Break-Taking. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (pp. 66-69).

[8] You, C., Suma Rosenberg, E., & Thomas, J. (2019, October). Strafing gain: A novel redirected walking technique. In Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (pp. 1-1).