Hi, I am Misha.

Photo credit: Oscar Rosello

I graduated with a PhD in 2018 from the MIT Media Lab where I worked in the Fluid Interfaces group with Pattie Maes. I am now an Assistant Professor in the CS department at UCSB. Check out the beautiful campus in this aerial video.

I am looking for highly motivated PhD students to join my research group at UCSB in Fall 2019 and 2020. Please see my profile page for more info: Research Profile

Research

Over the last 50 years, as devices and technologies have evolved, interaction has become more direct and the things people can do have become more personal. My research asks the question: what if the whole body were an interface? The goal of my work is to create systems that use the entire body for input and output and automatically adapt to each user’s unique state and context. I call my concept Perceptual Engineering -- a way to alter the user’s perception (or more specifically the input signals to their perception) and manipulate it in subtle ways. My research explores the use of cognitive illusions to manage a user’s attention, breathing for direct interaction, machine learning for automated virtual-world generation, embodiment for remote collaboration, tangible interactions for play augmentation, and galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) for reducing nausea and in immersive experiences. My perceptual engineering approach has shown to (1) increase the user’s sense of presence in VR/MR, (2) provide a novel eyes-, ears-, and hands-free way to communicate with the user through proprioception and other senses, and (3) serve as a platform to question the boundaries of our sense of agency and trust.

Misc

TEDx talk (October 2018) on remote controlling human beings using galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS).

Article about my work in Forbes India -- Fresh off the (MIT Media) Lab (April 2019)

I enjoy doodling, photography and playing video games. I also like glass blowing and kyudo. You can contact me at sra (at) cs (dot) ucsb (dot) edu.

Projects


Other