100 Best Virtual Human Researchers

Notes:

This is a quantitative ranking based on the number of scholarly publications (output) from 2009-2018.

Jonathan Gratch is a professor of computer science and psychology at the University of Southern California (USC), as well as the director of virtual human research at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). His research focuses on the use of virtual humans in interactive systems, particularly in the areas of social interaction, emotion, and decision-making. Gratch has published numerous papers on these topics and has received several awards for his work, including the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award. He is also involved in the development of the Virtual Human Toolkit, a tool for studying human cognition using virtual humans. In addition to his academic work, Gratch is actively involved in the development of virtual human technology and its applications in various fields.
Herwin van Welbergen is a researcher in the field of virtual human technology. He has published many papers on the subject, particularly in the areas of behavior generation, multimodal interaction, and scheduling. Van Welbergen has also worked on the development of the BML specification language, which is a standardized interface used to control the behavior of virtual humans. He has conducted user evaluations of the movement of virtual humans and has studied the use of virtual humans in educational and entertaining contexts. Van Welbergen has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Twente, where he completed a dissertation on behavior generation for interpersonal coordination with virtual humans. He has also collaborated with other researchers in the field, including Dennis Reidsma and Zsofia Ruttkay.
Benjamin C. Lok is a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering at the University of Florida. He is a researcher in the field of virtual humans, which are computer-generated avatars or simulations of real or fictional humans that can be used for various purposes, such as training, education, entertainment, and therapy. Benjamin Lok has published numerous papers on the use of virtual humans in various applications and has received awards for his work in this area.
David Traum is a researcher and professor in the field of natural language processing, socially interactive agents, and virtual humans. He has published work on various topics related to virtual humans, including dialogue models, non-team interaction, and improving virtual human capabilities through grounding models. Traum has also worked on projects involving the integration of visual perception in dialogue understanding for virtual humans in multi-party interaction, and on using virtual humans to teach negotiation skills through practice and reflection.
Zhiguang Liu is a researcher working in the field of computer graphics and virtual reality. His work focuses on creating realistic virtual humans and retargeting motion between characters in virtual environments. Liu has also studied the impact of self-contacts and virtual human appearance on users’ emotional and perceptual responses, as well as the use of virtual humans for ergonomics and simulation.
Rachel McDonnell is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin. She is an expert in the field of virtual humans and has focused her research on the animation of virtual humans for use in immersive virtual reality, as well as the perception of embodied virtual humans. McDonnell has also conducted research on the appeal of virtual humans and the impact of control on their appeal in immersive environments. She has published numerous papers on these topics and is involved in a number of projects related to virtual humans.
Wei Wang is a researcher in the field of computer science, with a focus on virtual humans, motion planning, and deep learning. They have published multiple papers on topics such as virtual human motion synthesis, pedestrian detection with occlusion handling, and data augmentation for text generation. Wang has also worked on projects related to haptic feedback and facial expression in virtual humans, as well as the impact of virtual human interaction on users’ emotional responses.
David DeVault is a researcher in the field of virtual humans and dialogue systems. He has published numerous papers on topics such as interpretation of partial utterances in virtual human dialogue systems, incremental speech understanding in multi-party virtual human dialogue systems, and verbal indicators of psychological distress in interactive dialogue with a virtual human. He has also been involved in the development of the SimSensei Kiosk, a virtual human interviewer for healthcare decision support, and has worked on natural language dialogue resolution for virtual humans. In addition, he has studied the benefits of virtual humans for teaching negotiation and has explored the use of virtual humans in healthcare interviews.
Nadia Magnenat Thalmann is a computer graphics scientist and researcher who has specialized in the field of virtual humans for over 30 years. She has obtained several bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology, biology, computer science, and fine arts, and has published numerous papers on 3D graphics and virtual humans. Thalmann is the founder and head of the MIRALab at the University of Geneva, which focuses on virtual humans and social robots. She is also the author of the book “Handbook of Virtual Humans.” Thalmann’s research has focused on modeling and simulating behavior for virtual humans, as well as developing social robots.
Daniel Thalmann is a Swiss and Canadian computer scientist and a pioneer in the field of virtual humans. He is currently Honorary Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and has conducted research on virtual humans, social robots, crowd simulation, virtual heritage, and virtual reality. He has published numerous papers on these topics and has received the Eurographics Distinguished Career Award for his pioneering research on virtual humans and his leadership in establishing the field.

Resources:

lindsayvirtualhuman.com .. the human body through the lens of computing

Wikipedia:

Behavior authoring
Virtual human (disambiguation)