Neuroscience Day and Psychology Graduate Students' Association (PGSA) Research Symposium 2026

These last two and a half weeks have been busy for our new Master’s student, Chris Schiafone, who presented a poster on his upcoming Master’s thesis work at two research showcase events at York University.

On April 27th, 2026, as part of his neuroscience diploma program, Chris, along with other neuroscience students, presented a poster on their research. Chris’s work focuses on his upcoming study of the virtual and non-virtual affordances of neuroanatomical structures in individuals who are blind, visually impaired, or sighted.

On May 12th, 2026, Chris demoed some of the tactical learning tools he has been developing to aid learning and teaching of neural anatomy at the PGSA Research Symposium.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) VR - Daegu, Korea 2026

On March 21-25, 2026 PHD student Domenic Au travelled with his co-supervisor Dr. Rob Allison to IEEE VR in Daegu, Korea.

Domenic gave a talk on his thesis work on depth-cue conflict between real and virtual objects in augmented reality.

See snapshots of Domenic’s experiences on his travels.

Connected Minds Research Retreat - Toronto, Canada 2026

PDH students Iroshini Gunasekera, Phoebe Ching, and Master’s Student Nathaniel Goldstein attended and presented posters at the Connected Minds Research Retreat. The Retreat highlights interdisciplinary research of trainees from across the fields of Neuroscience and Behaviour, Intelligent Technologies and Society. All three Wilcox Lab members have been awarded the Connected Minds Scholarship.

Iroshini showcased a poster on her new study about the role of 2D and 3D depth cues in shape constancy for everyday objects.

Phoebe presented a poster on her work on interface interaction during free movement in virtual reality.

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Spatial User Interaction (SUI) and Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST) - Montreal, Canada 2025

The week of November 10th, 2025, was a busy one for the Wilcox Lab. Phoebe Ching and Iroshini Gunasekera, along with their co-supervisors, Dr. Laurie Wilcox and Dr. Rob Allison, were in Montreal for two conferences: the ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI) and the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST).

Phoebe gave a talk on her work about head-point mechanics in head-mounted displays at ACM SUI. This was developed in part from a course project for EECS 6329 at York University. Phoebe was also selected for the VISTA Travel Conference Award to attend this conference.

Iroshini presented one of her MA thesis experiments on the impact of depth cues and viewing (active vs passive) on 3D size judgments in virtual reality at ACM VRST.

ASPIRE Human Factor Ergonomics Society (HFES) - Chicago, USA 2025

Post-doc Brittney Hartle travelled to the Windy City (Chicago) this October to present her and PHD student Alreen Aksay's work done in collaboration with the Waterloo Institute of Sustainable Aeronautics at the ASPIRE HFES Conference. Brittney presented a poster on her and Arleen's work about the false horizon illusion in aviation.

See snapshots of the famous Wrigley Building and other Chicago architecture captured on the trip.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) VR Conference - Saint-Malo, France 2025

PDH student and our resident augmented reality expert, Domenic Au, attended the IEEE VR conference in Saint-Malo, France, this March and met with extended reality (XR) leaders in industry and academia.

Domenic had the opportunity to speak about his latest work on distance estimation for virtual objects in augmented reality.

See a snapshot of the view from IEEE VR 2025.