Jasmine Joyce DeGuzman Earns Honorable Mention for CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award
Department of Computer Science & Engineering (CS&E) undergraduate student Jasmine Joyce DeGuzman earned an honorable mention for the 2023-24 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award (URA) from the Computing Research Association (CRA). DeGuzman, along with Ryan Koo, Athreyi Badithela, and Alice Qian Zhang, is one of four CS&E undergraduates to earn this recognition.
DeGuzman is researching cybersickness and how to help users who get extreme motion sickness because of the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
“I’m someone who is extremely passionate about accessibility across the board, and being more inclusive and inviting to people from different backgrounds and abilities,” said DeGuzman. ”A huge barrier for VR is the fact that people can get severely motion sick. Some just have a slight headache, and some people get really bad motion sickness to where they throw up because of how sick they're feeling. I really wanted to try and chip away at that and help make VR more accessible to more people.”
DeGuzman was first introduced to computer science in high school. They found an interest in 3D modeling and immersive storytelling after her friend created a VR history project on Ellis Island.
“I was like, ‘This is insane,’” said DeGuzman. “ I’m a huge fan of history and the arts, but because I’m not conventionally artistic, I didn’t think I could get into this kind of area. Seeing this project and the work that my friend was doing, I realized this is a way for me to use my technical skills and my technical knowledge and apply that to a more creative space and change the way we approach storytelling.”
After having a long conversation with their professor, Marc Riedel, about his research on COVID-19 pathogens, DeGuzman got the inspiration to start working on their own research. Riedel is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“Growing up in northern New Jersey and having a lot of my friends and family involved in health care, COVID-19 was something that heavily impacted my community,” said DeGuzman. “When I came back in fall 2020 for classes, I was very very mad about the whole situation. When Professor Riedel so casually mentioned his research, I had to ask him what his project was, why he was doing this, and why he cared so much about it. I practically interrogated him about it. He was walking me through his project, and at the end of the meeting he said, ‘So same time next week?’ That is how I got involved with research.”
DeGuzman has submitted a 3D User Interface Contest entry, an extended abstract, and a research demo, to this year’s IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interface and is hoping to turn her idea into a full paper in the near future. DeGuzman is also working on another paper with CS&E associate professor Evan Suma Rosenberg, CS&E professor Victoria Interrante, and School of Kinesiology professor Thomas Stoffregen on cyber sickness in driving simulations.
DeGuzman credits Suma Rosenberg and everyone in the Illusioneering Lab for their mentorship and support of her research. Learn more about the CRA URA and other winners.