Dr Florian Weidner they/them
Lecturer in HCI
Strategic Research Areas
I am a Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computing Science and a member of the GIST section. I believe extended reality (XR) can bring people closer together, wherever they are, and make computing more enjoyable, effective, and woven into everyday life. Imagine sharing a room with a distant friend, collaborating with colleagues as if you were side by side, or meeting a helpful virtual guide. My research works toward that future and draws on what we have learned from earlier technologies such as social media, so that XR is built with wellbeing, privacy, and genuine human connection in mind from the start.
In particular, my group studies how gaze, gestures, and the body serve as input in augmented and virtual reality. We also study how avatars and virtual humans shape communication between remote people, and how AI agents change social interaction in virtual spaces. We build systems and evaluate them in controlled user studies, often with eye tracking and motion capture. The group includes several PhD students working on ergonomics in head-mounted displays, social XR, and haptics in augmented reality. We publish in top venues such as IEEE VR, ISMAR, and ACM CHI.
Questions around embodied interaction cannot be answered from computing alone. I would like to collaborate with:
- psychology and public health on loneliness and well-being
- neuroscience on social perception
- engineering on sensing and tracking
- design and the arts on immersive experiences
- law and ethics on privacy and platform governance
Possible DiveIn projects include:
- Virtual workspaces that make remote and hybrid teams as productive and connected as co-located ones
- Everyday XR, such as smart glasses and passthrough AR, that people can use comfortably and safely throughout the day
- Avatars and gaze cues that make remote communication feel natural and help people stay in touch across distance
- AI agents that support collaboration in shared XR spaces, as assistants, facilitators, or teammates
As a supervisor, I am closely involved early on and step back as students gain confidence. I expect students to shape their own agenda by their second year and encourage them to publish and present early.
Through the XR Hub Scotland, I connect academia, industry, the arts, and the public, which opens immersive technology research to people who would not otherwise encounter it.
Outside work, I spend most of my free time on a gravel or mountain bike.
