Meet Our Team

Dr. Anna Queiroz is an Associate Professor in the Interactive Media Department, and a member of the Frost Institute of Data Science and Computing at the University of Miami. She leads innovative Virtual Reality initiatives in communication, education, and climate change in public settings across the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Her research focuses on emerging media's cognitive, social, and psychological impacts on human behavior, charting new frontiers in education and communication.

She leads one of the largest VR research projects in education, introducing VR to approximately 33,000 middle and high school students from low-income communities. This project has earned media recognition and an award from the King Center on Global Development at Stanford University.

Her research interests focus on lab and field studies, which combine traditional research methods with artificial intelligence to understand human behavior in media environments.

Dr. Queiroz's work informs researchers, governments, and the industry on using emerging media in education and climate change awareness and adaptation. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Cognitive Psychology and degrees in business, behavioral medicine, and education. She completed her postdoc in a double appointment at the Graduate School of Education and the School of Communication at Stanford University.

Kim Grinfeder is an accomplished artist, designer, and creator who uses emergent technologies to address social and environmental issues. As the founding Chair and Professor at the Department of Interactive Media at the University of Miami, he has made significant contributions to the field of interactive narratives and immersive media. He leads the Institute of Data Science and Computing's creative computing efforts and runs UMVerse, where he is developing a coordinated strategy to expand leadership in spatial computing. Since its implementation, UMVerse has sparked over 50 research projects across disciplines, transforming the use of immersive media across campus in the field and classroom.

Kim's research focuses on creating narratives with social impact using immersive media tools and exploring the limits of these technologies. His highly interdisciplinary work has resulted in numerous collaborations across diverse fields, such as medicine, architecture, cinema, journalism, and more. His creative work has been recognized globally, including at festivals and competitions such as the Webby's, the Atlanta Film Festival, and the National Press Photographers Association. His work has also been exhibited at prestigious venues such as the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Kim is a frequent presenter at conferences where he shares his insights on the potential of immersive media for industry and narrative. His multidisciplinary collaborations have resulted in several papers in top-tier journals and conferences, including the Journal of Cancer Education, the International Communication Association, and the International Society for Occupational Ergonomics and Safety. He has received two top paper awards for his contributions to these fields.

In 2022, Kim was awarded the Provost's Transdisciplinary Innovation Teaching Award for his exceptional course titled "Religion and Sacred Spaces in the Era of VR and Artificial Intelligence." Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1972, Kim has lived in Brazil, France, and the United States, enriching his understanding of different cultures and perspectives. He currently lives in Miami with his wife, two daughters, cat, dog and goldfish.

Tom Merrick is a seasoned educator and technology enthusiast. He holds a BS in Information Engineering from Cornell and an MA in Independent School Leadership from Columbia. With 15 years of experience in education, including roles as a Math Director and School Administrator, Tom brings a unique perspective on technology's role in learning.

Tom's journey led him to accept a fellowship at Stanford University's Distinguished Career Institute (DCI), where he discovered the potential of Virtual Reality to revolutionize education. He taught VR courses at Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab and continued as an educator with Stanford Continuing Education. Now, at the University of Miami, Tom is passionate about teaching Virtual Reality while exploring innovative ways to support faculty and students in harnessing immersive technologies for transformative learning experiences. His expertise and vision are integral to our mission of reshaping education through XR.

Justin Jacobson's research focuses on the use of digital interventions to support and enhance family dynamics. He is particularly interested in the potential of technology to foster meaningful relationships and promote emotional well-being within families. His current work centers on the application of digital games and interactive play experiences to strengthen parent-child relationships and improve attachment outcomes. By integrating insights from developmental psychology, attachment theory, and play therapy into digital formats, his goal is to create accessible tools that promote bonding, communication, and emotional attunement between caregivers and children

One of his key projects involves developing and evaluating a relationship-enhancement game designed as a mobile app for parents and children to play together. This tool incorporates core principles of play therapy—such as structured interaction, playful engagement, and nurturing touch—within a gamified experience that encourages joint engagement and attachment building. Designed to be both fun and therapeutic, the app provides prompts and activities that guide families through moments of connection, reflection, and shared joy. Beyond serving as a bonding tool, the project also offers a replicable model for how digital play can be leveraged to support healthy attachment in everyday family life.

Marie is a textile designer and researcher educated in Denmark at the Danish design university, Kolding School of Design. Her work explores the relationship between haptic perception, embodied interaction, and digital materiality within XR environments. She investigates how tactile and multisensory engagement, including the use of wearable vibrotactile haptic devices such as gloves, can enhance learning, empathy, and cognitive development across educational and healthcare contexts.

Marie is currently a visiting research scholar at the Department of Interactive Media at University of Miami, while pursuing her MA thesis in Design for People in Denmark. She leads a research branch within the Lexi Learn project, a broader collaboration led by Dr Anna Queiroz, head of FurLAB, which explores interdisciplinary approaches combining design, haptic gloves, immersive environments, and adaptive generative AI to support early-stage literacy learning through embodied engagement.

Marie aims to advance the understanding of haptics as a medium of connection, communication, and learning, positioning touch as a central component of future immersive experiences. Through a phenomenological and human-centred approach, she examines how sensory design can bridge physical and virtual experiences to foster more inclusive and meaningful technologies.

Meshak "Shak" Cole is a researcher and immersive media designer at the University of Miami's School of Communication, pursuing a Master's in Interactive Media. His research explores how AR/VR and AI systems can enhance self-efficacy and health behavior through adaptive feedback and value-centered design.

Drawing on social-cognitive, self-determination, and flow theories, he develops mixed-reality fitness and mental health interventions that integrate affective computing and real-time biometric feedback. His broader goal is to advance human–AI interaction frameworks that foster intrinsic motivation, resilience, and purpose by linking value-based reflection with data-driven behavioral modeling.

Gabriel K. G. Shimanuki received the B.Sc. degree with honors in Computer Engineering from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, in 2023, where he is currently pursuing the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering. Since 2020, he has been a member of the Safety Analysis Group at Poli-USP, focusing on autonomous vehicle safety, fault injection, and optimization for embedded systems.

He also holds R&D consulting experience, developing machine learning and automation projects for industry partners. His research has led to several peer-reviewed publications, award-winning projects, and the development of simulation-based safety assessment frameworks, and has been supported by multiple research fellowships from government agencies and industry.

Dr. Chen "Crystal" Chen graduated from the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the Department of Strategic Communication at the University of Miami School of Communication in fall 2023. Her research focuses on individuals' attention, motivation, and decision-making in immersive experiences such as AR/VR, games, and narratives.

To investigate this, she employs both behavioral research methods and formal modeling techniques. Her aim is to refine and modernize the theoretical constructs related to immersive experiences in order to provide a clearer understanding of their role in modulating media selection and effects. Through her work, she hopes to assist users and advertisers in developing appropriate media skills and making informed decisions when engaging with complex and immersive media experiences.

Dr. Ching-Hua Chuan is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at the University of Miami. She received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA, USA) Viterbi School of Engineering, and her B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the National Taiwan University.

Dr. Chuan's research interests include artificial intelligence, human-centered computing, computational communication, and music information retrieval. She has published refereed articles in journals and conferences on human-machine communication, human-centered AI, AI's societal impact, augmented/mixed reality, and machine learning applications.

She was the recipient of the Arthur Page Legacy Scholar in 2022 for her teamwork on developing a theory-based mobile app for cultivating sustainable environmental-friendly behaviors. She also received the best paper award from the Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising in 2022, and the best new investigator paper award at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 2010. She is also the founder of Women in Music Information Retrieval (WiMIR) started in 2011.