Spotlight on Young Researchers: Virtual Reality to reconnect with your body

What is your research focus?

“My research contributes to developing and testing a virtual reality platform that helps us understand how people perceive their bodies and how that perception can be changed. By experimenting with different body representations and perspectives, we’re collecting detailed data on how users respond, emotionally, physically, and behaviourally. This helps refine psychological theories around body image disturbance and eating disorders. At the same time, we’re building a tool that could be used in therapy, filling a gap in current treatments by directly targeting body image distortion in a new and immersive way.”

What drives you as a scientist and where do you see yourself in 5 years?

“What drives me is the belief that science can spark real change. Mental health is still surrounded by stigma, and no one should suffer in silence. Being part of research that helps reduce that suffering is a privilege. In five years, I see myself in academia or industry—I don’t give myself limits. What matters most is continuing to do meaningful work and raise awareness around mental health. I love that science never stands still — it constantly feeds my curiosity. Every day brings new questions, new ideas, and the chance to work with inspiring people. Research isn’t just about answers; it’s about growing, connecting, and helping shape a better future for everyone.”

On her research, peer to peer

“VRBIAS develops and evaluates a virtual reality-based platform to assess and treat body image disturbance, grounded in psychological and neurobiological models of eating disorders. It combines behavioural, psychophysiological, and neurocognitive measures, including heartbeat-evoked potentials and multisensory illusions to induce embodiment. We examine variables like avatar realism, viewing perspective, and agency to improve intervention efficacy. The platform enables dimensional assessment of body image distortion and dissatisfaction, both in VR and real life. By integrating cutting-edge technology with theory-driven design, VRBIAS aims to support research, clinical diagnostics, and intervention for disorders such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder.”

What is the focus of your research?

“My research addresses a variety of complex challenges, all demanding great care due to the inherent privacy considerations of the human body. Our main goal is to recreate the human experience inside of virtual environments, providing a sensation of identifying with one’s own avatar representation and to access body image questions. To create realistic representations, a substantial amount of research focuses on creating techniques to maximize realism, without taking other factors of accessibility into account.”

“In contrast, we ask to what extent realism is important and focus on comparable effects while taking privacy, space usage, cost and scalability into account to account for inclusivity and accessibility.”

What drives you as the scientist and where do you see yourself in 5 years?

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton. What drives me most is the knowledge that my work is public and applicable to many areas. No matter what the result of your experiments are, you are providing to a public pool of knowledge where anyone can learn from your experience, improve it and pass new knowledge on. I don’t see myself in any other environment in 5 years.”

“What I love about science is the collaborative aspect you not only have with your team, but also the wider scientific community altogether. You get to pose unique questions, develop methods and then discuss your work in this common framework. With the ideals of academic freedom and openness, your work might even help solve other problems you never knew existed.”

On his research, peer to peer

“Since we are focusing on psychotherapeutic applications, we are pushed towards really thinking about the interdisciplinary focus between Computer Science and Psychology. Technical feasibility alone isn’t enough when research involves real people and sensitive context. Therefore, we work on avatar creation techniques which provide phenotypic adjustment methods (changing parameters such as height, shoulder width, hip width, etc.) while focusing less on scanning the body itself. Lifelike avatar bodies may even have adverse effects akin to the uncanny valley. Therefore, we must get the balance of realism and the overall feeling of control of a virtual avatar just right.”