Tecnológico de Monterrey students interested in the program, please address any questions about the application process to Crockett Sewell, sewellc@purdue.edu.
Faculty Name: Christos Mousas
E-Mail: cmousas@purdue.edu
Project Term: Fall 2026
Project Description:
This project investigates how advanced cognitive functionalities, such as intelligence, knowledgeability, reasoning, memory, and emotion, can enhance the trustworthiness, factuality, and anthropomorphism of virtual agents in immersive VR environments. By integrating these cognitive components into embodied conversational agents, the project aims to create more coherent, reliable, and emotionally responsive interactions that feel natural and human-like. Through iterative experimentation and behavioral refinement, we will examine how these enhanced agents influence user trust, engagement, and perception, ultimately advancing the design of believable and cognitively rich virtual characters.Requirements:
Experience with C# or similar programming languages (required).Faculty Name: Christos Mousas
E-Mail: cmousas@purdue.edu
Project Term: Fall 2026
Project Description:
This project explores embodied intelligence in self-avatars that humans and AI jointly control within immersive VR environments. The goal is to develop adaptive avatar systems in which the AI can interpret users' intentions, actions, and cognitive context, and dynamically complement their behavior through autonomous yet coordinated movements. By endowing the AI component with capabilities such as intention recognition, predictive modeling, and situational reasoning, the avatar can act as a collaborative partner rather than a passive representation. This hybrid control model aims to enhance user performance, ease of interaction, and the overall sense of embodiment, ultimately creating avatars that feel more capable, intelligent, and seamlessly aligned with human users.Requirements:
Experience with C# or similar programming languages (required).