Jan Kolkmeier

Work on two projects as research engineer. First, Implementation and evaluation of social robot behaviors on the EU Project "Harmony" for social robotics in healthcare. Second, development and evaluation of a Virtual Assistant for Genetic counseling, as part of a larger digital platform to be deployed in the Dutch healthcare system.

My thesis topic was on novel social interaction experiences in mixed reality. The research explored different forms of mediated social interactions using mixed reality technology, and how they could play out in different contexts. These include (simulated) face-to-face interactions with (virtual) humans, social conflict situations, as well as remote collaboration tasks with other humans.

During this research internship at Meta (Facebook), I assisted in conducting a study on social interaction in the Metaverse/VR and participated in data processing and analysis. Here, I collaborated with both internal and external teams to develop a data analysis pipeline. I also employed AI methods for analysis. Additionally, I gained experience in software development within large teams and software projects, including version control and code review processes.

In this research internship at Meta (Facebook), I conducted a study on the perception of gesture reproduction on virtual humans in the area of social interaction in the Metaverse/VR and analyzed it. Here, I collaborated closely with other researchers, actors (MoCap), and technical artists.