Grateful for a summer of research, collaboration, and connecting with XR+game studies communities. Some highlights: ✅ Completed my research scientist internship at Meta Reality Labs Research ✅ Co-presented at the #SIGGRAPH Spatial Storytelling demos ✅ Presented at the BIPOC Game Studies conference

Virtual Becomes Reality finally available (for free) on Quest. Take a guided 15-minute tour of the Stanford lab. Fly like a hero, walk the plank, defend coral in Palau, become a QB, dance with Grover, transform identity in the mirror. Now we are bringing the lab to you! www.meta.com/experiences/...

BEASTS: Dual Perspectives on Virtual Puppetry through Theatrical Expression and XR Research Stanford VHIL & C.U.T.E. blend theater & research via live digital puppetry drawing on Korean folklore. Performer creates & becomes shaped by fantastical representations. www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

Game educators, GDC submissions are due much earlier! (Aug 7). Please submit, I can vouch that the conference is really excited to have educator content and even opened up ideas like workshops and debates. Here's the call: gdconf.com/gdc-call-for... Feel free to reach out to me with any questions 🙂

Career update: Excited to share that I've joined Meta Reality Labs in Redmond, WA as a UX Research Scientist Intern this summer where I will be investigating how humans experience and interact with novel audio technologies in MR/VR 🎧☀️

I've been trying to challenge myself to try something new each year. This year, I explored tech + performance as an Assistant Technologist for Stanford TAP’s Spring Rise Up, collaborating on integrating mocap into Raissa Simpson’s Ode to Intimacy piece. Grateful for the experience and amazing team!

Students working in Olin’s Pl(ai) Lab, run by @apcuad.bsky.social, assistant professor of computer science, are collaborating with The Center at the Heights, a senior citizen center in Needham, MA, on pioneering #AI technological innovations. 📲 Learn more: www.olin.edu/articles/sto... #CS #AR

Had a wonderful time in Denver, CO attending #ICA25 this past weekend! In addition presenting our research recently published in Computers in Human Behavior, it was so great catching up with colleagues, meeting new people, having insightful discussions, and learning from the sessions I attended.

Art & is a new podcast from Stanford Arts exploring how art drives innovative, collaborative research across campus. I had the joy of recording an episode on Arts & Digital Embodiment with immersive tech + live performance artist and creative producer, Scarlett Kim. It's now live! 🎙️ Link below

Now that the ink is dry, I’m thrilled to share that I’ve officially signed the contract for my first academic book with University of California Press! I feel incredibly lucky and honored that @michellelipinski.bsky.social reached out after encountering my dissertation—we immediately

Five enduring, in-lab VR results (w/ @stanfordvr.bsky.social): (1) presence depends on activity, (2) self-avatars shape behavior, (3) VR better for procedural than abstract learning,(4) body tracking is powerful but privacy-risky, (5) people underestimate VR distance. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

5 robust, replicated, & meta-analyzed findings from 30 years of psych research in VR. Timeline of events in experiment history, recommendations for consumers & scholars new to the medium, and the DICE model on when to use (and not use) VR. @nathumbehav.nature.com vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

How do groups behave in VR? Monique Santoso coded 9,000 speech acts to develop Virtual Reality Interaction Dynamics Scheme, 10 speech acts (e.g., disagreements, context-dependent commentary). Prior speech acts and current nonverbal behavior predict group action. vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

Who speaks next? @PortiaWang.bsky.social analyzed a VR dataset of 77 sessions, 1660 minutes of group meetings over 4 weeks. Verbal & nonverbal history captured at millisecond level predicted turn-taking at nearly 30% over chance. To appear @acm-cscw.bsky.social. vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

New #cscw paper out with my amazing collaborators! In it, we predicted and analyzed what features saliently predicted turn-taking behaviors in VR 🗣️📢

This week, I had the pleasure of presenting at @baychi.org's monthly speaker program. Drawing from lab studies, field studies, and virtual ethnographic work, I shared my research exploring the role of avatar representation in shaping user experiences in social VR. Thank you for having me!

Tues, Apr 8 @7:30pm PT (Zoom or in person @ Stanford this time): “Immersive Virtual Embodiment: How Avatar Representation Shapes UX in Social VR.“ Cyan DeVeaux, Stanford Communication PhD Candidate, will discuss the effects of avatars in VR & offer design implications. baychi.org/calendar/202...

grateful for this community ❤️

If no one does the work, we'll never know. That's why we're here now.

New paper out! We explore avatar embodiment experiences of 52 Black users in social VR from ethnographic interviews + lab study. Findings unpack embodied consequences of racial representation in immersive VR and how users navigated challenges to expressing identity. vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

I’ll be attending my first GDC next week! Excited to attend talks and meet new people in the gaming, XR, and research space. Feel free to say hello if you see me around or reach out if you’d like to meet up! 🎮 #GDC2025

Had a great time guest lecturing for Prof. Anna Queiroz’s Meaningful Connections class at UMiami! I shared my research on the embodied and psychological implications of avatar representation in social VR and then we hopped into VRChat together, where students experienced avatar embodiment firsthand.

Hi Bluesky! 🦋 I’m Cyan, an HCI PhD Candidate at Stanford researching immersive tech for enriching and inclusive human-centered experiences. I build and study AR/MR/VR systems related to education, creativity, and social interaction. My work also explores Black virtuality and avatars 👾👩🏾‍💻📚