Jerald Thomas joined the UWM College of Engineering & Applied Science in May as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science.
He brings to UWM research specialties in virtual and augmented reality, redirected walking, human computer interaction, and collaborative virtual environments. His research on redirected walking earned him the Best Paper Award at the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology in 2020.
Most recently, Thomas was a Computing Innovation post-doc fellow at Virginia Tech’s Department of Computer Science. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from University of Minnesota.
At UWM, Thomas will start a new research lab devoted to human perception and interaction in virtual and augmented reality and is currently looking for graduate and undergraduate students to work with. In addition, he plans to start a line of research in VR-assisted therapy.
He will teach two classes this Fall semester (COMPSCI 459(G): Fundamentals of Computer Graphics and COMPSCI 657/790: Immersive Technologies and 3D User Interfaces). In addition, he is a member of the UWM Connected Systems Institute’s Academic Advisory Committee.
Thomas’s office is Room 990D and his email address is jeraldt@uwm.edu.