An Interdisciplinary Center
Interdisciplinary collaboration generates transdisciplinary knowledge, producing insights that extend beyond the boundaries of any single field.
Founded in 2016 and housed in the College of Education and Human Sciences, the Mixed Reality Lab began as a design research facility and has grown into a center where designers, engineers, educators, health researchers, and computer scientists work on shared problems with shared instruments. A hospitality researcher and a designer build an AI-enabled hotel room together. Tribal educators and 3D-scanning specialists build a digital heritage archive together. NASA engineers and graduate students rethink how astronauts should live.
The lab's method is consistent across all of it: build the environment, place a human inside it, and measure what actually happens, through behavior, self-report, and physiology. Extended reality is our laboratory apparatus; the human experience of designed space is our subject.
One integrated model drives the work: teaching operates as a research engine, research operates as a learning platform, and both feed a third output of mentoring, funding pathways, and partnerships.
Research + Creative Activity
XR and AI as tools to study and shape experience. Evidence-based design using mixed methods. Dissemination through journals, exhibitions, and convenings.
Teaching
Studios and seminars structured as living labs. Students learn protocols, ethics, and iteration. Outputs: prototypes + documentation + reflection.
Impact + Enablement
Mentoring for students and early-career faculty. Funding pathways through grants, fellowships, and sponsors. Partnerships across industry, community, and global networks.
