Xichen He
Ph.D. Student in Computer Science & Biomedical Informatics @ Emory University
- researching XR, HCI, and brain-computer interfaces (BCI).
- building adaptive learning systems from eye tracking, EEG, and physiological sensing.
- exploring VLA agents that connect human mental states with embodied AI.
About
I'm a Ph.D. student in Computer Science & Biomedical Informatics at Emory University, advised by Dr. Dishita Turakhia in the ImmersED HCI Group. My research focuses on extended reality systems that integrate physiological sensing to create adaptive, human-centered interactive experiences with embodied AI assistance in XR environments.
Before joining Emory, I received my M.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University - researching XR interaction techniques in the Computer Graphics & User Interfaces Lab with Steven Feiner and multimodal brain-computer interfaces in LIINC Lab with Paul Sajda - and my B.S. in Computer Science with honors from UC Santa Barbara.
- Extended Reality & Spatial Computing
- Physiological Sensing & Brain-Computer Interfaces
- Vision-Language-Action Agents & Human-AI Interaction
- 2026 - present Ph.D. Computer Science & Biomedical Informatics, Emory University (advisor: Dishita G. Turakhia)
- 2023 - 2025 M.S. Computer Science, Columbia University (advisor: Steven K. Feiner)
- 2019 - 2023 B.S. Computer Science (with honors), UC Santa Barbara (advisor: Kerem Çamsarı)
News
- Aug 2026 OLIVE, our XR agent learning from online behavior and BCI evidence, will appear at ACM UIST 2026.
- Aug 2026 Started my Ph.D. in Computer Science & Biomedical Informatics at Emory University, advised by Dishita G. Turakhia.
- Apr 2026 SwEYEpinch, our gaze-swipe XR text entry work, published at CHI 2026.
- Mar 2026 Bimanual XR specification of assembly hierarchies for teleoperation published at IEEE VR (VRW) 2026.
- 2026 Served as a reviewer for ACM DIS 2026.
- Oct 2025 VR task guidance through relative 6DoF pose specification published at IEEE ISMAR-Adjunct 2025.
- Mar 2025 Permanent Proxies published at IEEE VR (VRW) 2025.
- 2025 Served as a reviewer for ACM CHI Extended Abstracts 2025.
- Oct 2024 Demoed the MercuryMessaging XR GUI at IEEE ISMAR 2024 in Seattle.
Research
My research centers on multimodal interaction for XR and on physiological sensing and brain-computer interfaces for adaptive learning systems. Recent threads:
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Text entry and interaction techniques for XR
SwEYEpinch lets you type by sweeping your gaze across a virtual keyboard while a held pinch marks when to commit - faster and better liked than tapping keys or hand swiping (CHI ’26). Earlier, permanent proxies made selecting and manipulating objects with both hands easier by giving you copies that stick around (IEEE VR ’25).
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XR task guidance and teleoperation
Instead of pinning every object to exact world coordinates, we let people describe how objects should relate to each other: relative 6DoF pose guidance for remote physical tasks (ISMAR ’25), and bimanual authoring of assembly hierarchies that set high-level goals for robots to carry out (IEEE VR ’26).
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Physiological sensing and implicit BCIs
OLIVE, our XR agent, learns what actually helps you from your behavior together with implicit EEG and pupil evidence, adapting its assistance online — and readapting when the task silently changes (UIST ’26). Along the way I contribute to the open-source tooling this work runs on - PhysioLabXR for closed-loop sensing, and the MercuryMessaging XR GUI for debugging Unity scenes from inside XR (ISMAR ’24 demo).
Publications
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Augmenting Human Performance with an XR Agent Learning from Online Behavior and BCI Evidence
UIST 2026 · 2026
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)
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SwEYEpinch and Beyond: Exploring Intuitive, Efficient Text Entry for Extended Reality via Eye and Hand Tracking
CHI 2026 · 2026
Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
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Bimanual XR Specification of Relative and Absolute Assembly Hierarchies for Teleoperation
IEEE VR 2026 · 2026
2026 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)
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Virtual Reality Task Guidance Through Relative 6DoF Pose Specification
ISMAR 2025 · 2025
2025 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct)
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Permanent Proxies for Bimanual Selection and Manipulation in VR
IEEE VR 2025 · 2025
2025 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)
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An XR GUI for Visualizing Messages in ECS Architectures
ISMAR 2024 · 2024
2024 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct)
* equal contribution
Awards
- 2023 Graduation High Honors, UC Santa Barbara
- 2019 - 2023 Dean's Honors, UC Santa Barbara
Teaching & Service
Teaching
- Fall 2026 Teaching Assistant, CS 584 - Topics In Computer Science: Extended Reality Skill Bldg., Emory University (with Dishita G. Turakhia)
- Spring 2025 Co-mentor, COMS E6901 - Projects in Computer Science, Columbia University (with Steven K. Feiner)
- Winter 2023 Undergraduate Learning Assistant, CS111 - Introduction to Computational Science, UC Santa Barbara (with John R. Gilbert)
Service
- 2025 Reviewer, ACM CHI Extended Abstracts 2025
- 2026 Reviewer, ACM DIS 2026
Miscellaneous
Outside the lab, I'm a great fan of soccer and ice climbing.
