Haley Adams

Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN, USA
email: haley.a.adams@vanderbilt.edu

Special Announcment

I will be joining Google's Augmented Reality Team as an Applied Vision Scientist this March!!

About

I am a Computer Science PhD Candidate in Vanderbilt University's Learning in Virtual Environments (LiVE) Lab. In my research, I quantify perceptual differences between virtual, augmented, and real environments to better understand how people interact with immersive technology. I find optical see-through (OST) displays--like the Microsoft HoloLens and Magic Leap--especially fascinating.

The goal of my dissertation is to provide concrete guidelines for improving spatial perception in augmented reality (AR) for users with both normal and impaired vision. For this work, I look at the impact of different rendering techniques on people's ablity to correctly position virtual objects in physical space. I am also developing an AR vision impairment simulation that can be used to study how design decisions affect the accessibility of physical products as well as digital applications.

Outside of the lab I am learning to ride a unicyle, because balance is important!

Research Interests - Virtual & Augmented Reality, Human-Computer Interaction, Perception, Accessibility

Latest News

Oct2022 - In an invited talk for PERCxR @ ISMAR I discussed perception and stylized graphics.

Jun 2022 - Ricardo, Raja, Steve, and I discussed "Research to Practice in XR Accessibility" at XR Access Symposium. You can watch the replay on YouTube.

May 2022 - I enjoyed talking about my work on depth perception in AR at VSS. View my poster here.

Apr 2022 - We hired 2 VUSE REUs to join our Accessibility in AR Project this summer!

Mar2022 - I presented 2 papers at IEEE VR. You can watch the talks on YouTube.

...

Jun2021 - I received the Mircrosoft Research Dissertation Grant! Read my proposal here.

Some Publications

Two augmented reality head-mounted displays are shown: the Varjo XR-3 (a video see-through display) and the Microsoft HoloLens 2 (an optical see-through display).

Depth Perception in Augmented Reality: The Effects of Display, Shadow, and Position
Haley Adams, Jeanine Stefanucci, Sarah Creem-Regehr, and Bobby Bodenheimer
IEEE VR 2022
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video ]

A virtual wooden box sits on top of a table nearby. There is no cast shadow rendered beneath it.

Shedding Light on Cast Shadows: An Investigation of Perceived Ground Contact in AR and VR
Haley Adams, Jeanine Stefanucci, Sarah Creem-Regehr, Grant Pointon, William Thompson, and Bobby Bodenheimer
TVCG 2021
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video ]

A woman stands at the edge of three virtual gaps presented by the Microsoft HoloLens. The leftmost gap is 0.25m deep. The center gap is 1.0m deep. And the third gap is 1.5m deep.

Danger from the Deep: A Gap Affordance Study in Augmented Reality
Hansen Wu, Haley Adams, Grant Pointon, Jeanine Stefanucci, Sarah Creem-Regehr, and Bobby Bodenheimer
IEEE VR 2019 Workshop on Perceptual and Cognitive Issues in AR (PERCAR)
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video ]

Distance Judgments to On- and Off-Ground Objects in Augmented Reality
Carlos Salas Rosales, Grant Pointon, Haley Adams, Jeanine Stefanucci, Sarah Creem-Regehr, William B. Thompson, and Bobby Bodenheimer
IEEE Virtual Reality 2019
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video ]

Illustration of the CNN architecture used for walking in place activity detection. Our method uses a sequence of IMU data as input for the network, which is trained to recognize walking and standing actions.

Improving Walking in Place Methods with Individualization and DeepNetworks
Sara Hanson, Richard A. Paris, Haley Adams, and Bobby Bodenheimer
IEEE Virtual Reality 2019
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video ]

A screenshot of a VR user pointing to an ear structure within a semi-transparent 3d model of the human skull.

Development and Evaluation of an Immersive Virtual Reality System for Medical Imaging of the Ear
Haley Adams, Justin Shinn, William G Morrel, Jack Noble, and Bobby Bodenheimer
SPIE: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling 2019
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video ]

A picture of a person walking on wooden slats while wearing an HTC Vive head-mounted display

Perception of Height in Virtual Reality -- A Study of Climbing Stairs
Noorin Asjad, Haley Adams, Richard Paris, and Bobby Bodenheimer
ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP) 2018
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video demo ]

A young child tosses an HTC Vive controller to an experimenter who is posed to catch it. An inflatible air mattress and tiled foam squares are on the ground to protect the equipment from errant tosses.

Locomotive and Prism Recalibration of Children and Teens in Immersive Virtual Environments.
Haley Adams, Gayathri Narasimham, John Rieser, Sarah Creem-Regehr, Jeanine Stefanucci, and Bobby Bodenheimer
IEEE VR 2018 (TVCG)
[ doi ] [ pdf ] [ video ] [ slides ]

A birds-eye view of the virtual environment is presented. A roundabout is displayed in which three cars are circulating. Sparse trees and buildings populate the area around the traffic circle

3D Sound Rendering in a Virtual Environment to Evaluate Pedestrian Street Crossing Decisions at a Roundabout.
Haojie Wu, Daniel Ashmead, Haley Adams, and Bobby Bodenheimer
IEEE VR Workshop on Sonic Interactions for Virtual Environments (SIVE) 2018
[ doi ] [ pdf ]

A central scotoma is simulated using a radial opacity and blur field at the center of the screen. The dark opacity is circumscribed by the blur field. The view of two cars in a virtual environment roundabout are obscured.

Using Virtual Reality to Assess the Street Crossing Behavior of Pedestrians with Simulated Macular Degeneration at a Roundabout
Haojie Wu, Daniel Ashmead, Haley Adams, and Bobby Bodenheimer
Frontiers in Virtual Environments 2018
[ doi ] [ pdf ]

Female middle and high school students crowd around a 3D printer, which is supervised by an undergraduate camp counselor.

igniteCS: Addressing Undergraduate CS Retention
Erin Mindell Cannon, Priya Chawla, Katherine Lo, and Haley Adams
ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) 2016
[ doi ] [ pdf ]

Projects

Women in Computing -- ACM-W Student Chapter

I was a founding member and chair of both my undergraduate and graduate university chapters. In 2017, a team of undergraduates and I also founded WiC's first annual emerging technology conference (Emerge) at Vanderbilt University. For this event, I enjoyed providing my expertise in virtual reality, handling event logistics, and recruiting guest speakers (2013-2015, 2016-2017).
[ vu women in computing ] [ emerge 2018 ]

Camp Codette

In 2015, Dr. Betsy Williams Sanders and I founded a coding camp for middle and high school girls, which was initially sponsored by a gift from Google Education's igniteCS program. I designed the curriculum and managed a team of undergradate counselors as we instructed sessions for Python, Scratch, and Unity (2015, 2016).
[ camp codette ] [ igniteCS ] [ news article ] [ google blog ]

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