Recent I3T Lab Graduate Sarah Eom Highlighted by the Duke University Center for Computational and Digital Health Innovation

Posted on June 10, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

Sarah Eom, PhD, was highlighted by the Duke University Center for Computational and Digital Health Innovation for her work at the intersection of next-generation immersive systems and healthcare. Congratulations Dr. Eom!

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Is This the Future for Smart Glasses and AI?

Posted on June 10, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

If you do not believe that the future is smartglasses + AI, the VisionClaw paper might change your mind.

The authors created a system that “running on Meta RayBan smart glasses, continuously perceives real-world context and enables in-situ, speech-driven action delegation via Gemini Live and OpenClaw AI agents.” Paper’s description of a (small; N=4) deployment study is fascinating in its demonstration of how agentic interaction changes everyday behavior.

I’ve always believed in augmented reality – obviously! – but this is just a whole other level of opportunities for AR and AI.

Full text of the paper on ArXiv 

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I3T Lab Tour a Part of Regional NAE Meeting

Posted on May 27, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

It was our sincere pleasure to offer a Duke I3T Lab Tour as part of the National Academy of Engineers Regional Meeting held at Duke University in May 2026.

 

May 2026 NAE Regional Meeting attendees exploring live AR and VR demonstrations as part of the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering lab tour

Just like the Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) NAE Symposium I attended back in 2021, the Regional Meeting was a real treat: it outlined both the promise and the challenges in the exciting and important space of commercial aviation, from multiple technical and non-technical perspectives. Like the FOE Symposium, it reminded me how exciting it is to be an engineer: to have not only an in-depth understanding of the problems and the underlying processes, but also know how to solve them. Thankful for the organizers for the opportunity to participate in this event and to contribute to it. [ Short video with several snippets from the lab tour ]

 

Posted in Augmented reality, Demonstrations, Duke University, Events, Highlights, Lab tours, Mobile computing, Students and Mentorship | Leave a comment

I am a Bass Chair!

Posted on May 16, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

I am one of only nine faculty, across all of Duke, to be named the 2026 Bass Chair – the honor that recognizes faculty whose teaching and research exemplify Duke’s commitment to undergraduate education.

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One More Half-marathon: Garmin Durham 1/2

Posted on May 10, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

My third half marathon in the last two years – May 2026 Garmin Durham 1/2 marathon – done!

Lovely race; running through the Durham Bulls stadium is a very special experience, and so is finishing on Duke’s football stadium.

Problem with finishing on this stadium: then you have to climb all of the stadium’s stairs, on shaky, wooden legs. But the unique experience is worth it. It reminded me of some of the truly unique races I have done before, like a race that goes through the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River and a race on the airstrip of the Teterboro Airport. Huge thanks to the organizers for bringing these one-of-a-kind events to life.

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Smart Glasses, With Back-End AI as a Key Feature: Diverse Models All Co-Existing For The Foreseeable Future?

Posted on May 5, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

You would think that you are visiting an optician to select a frame for your new prescription. But this is a technology showcase: all of these are smart glasses, connected, on the backend, to powerful audio- and video-understanding AI models, offering a myriad of important AI-based support and oversight functionalities.

Incredible things have been happening in the world of smart glasses, thanks to the AI revolution. Long restricted to costly, niche use cases, they are on the cusp of becoming an everyday gateway to AI – in a good way! Not “you get more targeted ads” type of AI, but “have I secured my child’s car seat properly?” type of AI.

In smart glasses hardware, a sea of options and opportunities. My Duke lab alone already has 7 (seven!) different models, with different capabilities — see the photo of our new smart glasses display rack. We used to think that in the future everyone would be wearing the same type of an AR headset. The future looks different now: it seems more likely that different types of smart glasses will all exist at the same time, side by side, serving different needs and offering different tradeoffs.

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Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech (CHCI@VT) Headliner Seminar

Posted on May 2, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

Possible at Last: Using Large Multimodal Models to Evaluate and Secure Mixed-Reality Experiences – this was the title of the talk I gave as part of the VT Center for Human-Computer Interaction Seminar. Sincere thanks to the organizers for the opportunity to share my perspective: we are finally, finally at the cusp of being able to provide real-time oversight of AR experiences.

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2025 in the Duke I3T Lab: Students, Systems, and Community

Posted on January 5, 2026 by Maria Gorlatova

In 2025, two Duke I3T Lab members received their PhDs and moved on to exciting careers in industry: Dr. Sarah Eom joined Exponent as a Biomedical Engineering Consultant; Dr. Lin Duan joined NVIDIA as an XR-AI Engineer. There were several exciting developments in the careers of our alums, too: Dr. Ying Chen joined Penn State University as an Assistant Professor. We enjoyed getting to catch up with her at IEEE VR and ACM VRST 2025.

Duke I3T Lab at IEEE VR 2025. Proud advisor moment: sitting in the audience while my former PhD student presented work from her own research group.

Duke I3T Lab members published across multiple key venues, including IEEE TVCG, IEEE VR, IEEE ISMAR,  ACM VRST, AACL Findings, and IEEE Internet Computing, and received multiple awards. Yanming Xiu received the IEEE ISMAR Best Paper Award, the IEEE ISMAR Doctoral Consortium Best Presentation Award, and Duke ECE Research Retreat Best Presentation Runner-up recognition. Under Yanming’s guidance, lab’s high-school affiliates Joshua Chilukuri and Shunav Sen received the 2025 IEEE Universal Augmented Interaction Workshop Best Paper Award.

This year also brought important new support for our work. The $743K NSF TIP Breaking Low Award will support our work on low-latency multi-user XR for rehabilitation. The $250K DARPA Director’s Fellowship will allow us to expand our effort in runtime oversight of AR experiences.

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Posted in Academia, Achievement, Career and Leadership, Duke University, Funding and Awards, Highlights, Industry, Industry impact, Publications and Demonstrations, Research, Students and Mentorship, Undergraduate research, Undergraduate research | Leave a comment

From Gaming Gear to ICU Rehabilitation: Bringing XR into Clinical Practice

Posted on December 27, 2025 by Maria Gorlatova

The November 2025 issue of Duke I/O Magazine includes an article titled “Transforming Reality: How Gaming Gear is Impacting Health Care,” featuring a lovely summary of our ongoing collaboration with the Duke University School of Nursing. Together, we are designing XR rehabilitation platforms for patients receiving long-term care in the ICU.

Excerpt from the Duke I/O article describing our joint work with DUSON

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Edge Computing’s Next Decade: Intelligent Spatial Systems – and a Responsibility to Get Them Right

Posted on December 24, 2025 by Maria Gorlatova

It was my genuine pleasure to get to share my thoughts about the past and future of edge computing at the ACM Symposium on Edge Computing 2025 panel, “Looking Back and Moving Forward: 10 Years of Edge Computing.”

My highest-level takeaway: we are entering the era of human-facing, intelligent spatial systems.  Continue reading →

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