Grants

Lab Picture 2019

Sponsored Research

[1]     “CHS: Small: Investigating the Characteristics of User Representations and Long-Term Experiences in Personal Space Depth Perception in Virtual Reality,” U.S. National Science Foundation, Principle Investigator, Award Total: $498,982 (Award ID: 2007435; 8/20 – 7/23).

Award announcement: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2007435&HistoricalAwards=false

  • Babu’s role as PI is to lead the VR system design, perceptual evaluation and longitudinal aspects of the project.
  • Expenditures provide 0.75 months of summer support for Babu, 1 graduate student and equipment for the 3 year duration of the project.

[2]     “mHealth Virtual Agent System for Remote Monitoring of Respiratory Distress and Hypoxia Mitigation in COVID-19 Patients,” CU-Prisma Health Innovation Maturation Fund Award, Principle Investigator, Award Total: $20,000 (8/20 – 7/21).

  • Babu’s role as PI is leading the mHealth smart phone system design, virtual agent, AI, and covid-19 outpatient user evaluation aspects.
  • Expenditures provide support for 1 graduate student hourly student and equipment for the 1 year duration of the project.

[3]     “Usability Assessment of a Patient-Centric Mobile Health Application for Patient Self-Management and Enhanced Patient-Caregiver-Provider Communication of Heart Failure,” Prisma Health Transformative Seed Grant, Principle Investigator, Award Total: $20,000 (3/20-12/20).

  • Babu’s role as PI is leading the mHealth smart phone system design, virtual agent creation, AI, and heart failure patient user evaluation.
  • Expenditures provide support for 2 undergraduate hourly students and equipment for the 1 year duration of the project.

[4]     “MRI: Development of Enodia: A highly reconfigurable, HPC-backed instrument enabling multifaceted interactive visualization,” U.S. National Science Foundation, Senior Personnel (PI-Dr. Brygg Ullmer), Award Total: $499,375 (Award ID: 1828611; 10/18-09/20).

         Award announcement: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1828611&HistoricalAwards=false

  • Babu’s role as SI was to provide guidance and recommendation of the application of the tangible display resources in interactive VR systems.
  • No expenditures, but collaborative research has led to several publications including in IEEE VR and IEEE TVCG venues.

[5]     “IUSE: EHR: Assessing Virtual Reality Field Experiences for Enhanced Learning in the Geosciences,” U.S. National Science Foundation, Co-Principle Investigator (PI-Dr. Stephen Moysey) (8/18 – 7/21).

Award announcement: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=182167

  • Babu’s role as Co-PI is in leading the design and development of VR simulations for undergraduate geology education.
  • Expenditures support 4 CS graduate and undergraduate hourly students and 0.5 weeks of summer support for Babu for 3 years.

[6]     “Usability Assessment of a Patient-centered Mobile Health Application (iHeartU) for Self-management of Heart Failure,” Greenville Health System (GHS) Transformative Seed Grant program, Co-Principle Investigator (PI-Dr. Lingling Zhang), Award Total: $20,000 (05/17 – 12/17).

  • Babu’s role as Co-PI was in leading the smart phone mHealth virtual agent and server development of a system for heart failure patients.
  • Expenditures support 1 undergraduate and 1 graduate CS student for the development of the server and smart phone applications.

[7]     “Building 3D Ad Contents for Virtual Reality Experiences,” Adobe Digital Marketing Research Awards, Co-Principle Investigator (PI-Dr. Oyewole Oyekoya), Award Total: $50,000 (05/18 – 05/22).

  • Babu’s role as Co-PI is in leading the research on the social influences of self-avatars and virtual humans in VR interactions.
  • Expenditures supported 2 graduate and 2 undergraduate hourly CS students for the past 3 years on the project.

[8]     “Virtual Environment Interactions: Exploring Grounded Embodied Pedagogy in Support of Computational Thinking,” U.S. National Science Foundation, Co-Principal Investigator (PI-Dr. Shani Daily), Award Total: $579,673 (Award ID: 1559756; 01/13 – 12/16).

         Award Announcement: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1559756&HistoricalAwards=false

  • Babu’s role as Co-PI was in leading the development of the VEnvI tool and VR systems for teaching programming in middle school students.
  • Expenditures supported 1.5 CS PhD students and 1 month of summer support for Babu for the 3 year duration of the project. 

[9]     “Nursing Surveillance Training using Interactive Virtual Simulation,” Medline Industries, Co-Principle Investigator (PI-Dr. Tracy Fasolino), Award Total: $99,981 (08/13 – 07/14).

  • Babu was Co-PI leading the design and development of the interactive virtual patient simulation for patient surveillance training of nurses.
  • Expenditures supported 2 CS PhD students and VR equipment for the 2 year duration of the project.

[10]   “Center for Aviation and Automotive Technology Education using Virtual E-School [CA2VES]: A Resource to Meet Technician Workforce Needs,” U.S. National Science Foundation, Investigator (PI-Dr. Anand Gramopadhye), Award Total: $0 (Award ID: 1104181; 08/13 – 09/16).

         Award Announcement: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1104181&HistoricalAwards=false

  • Babu was Investigator in the Center’s projects and was leading the design and creation of VR simulations for workforce development.
  • Expenditures supported 2 CS PhD students and equipment for the 3 year duration of the project.

[11]   “Accessible Support Services and Instruction for Sustainable Transition to Work (ASSIST),” U.S. Department of Labor, Co-Principle Investigator (PI-Dr. Anand Gramopadhye), Award Total: $878,467 (01/11 – 09/14).

  • Babu was Co-PI and was leading the design and development of VR simulations for aviation and automotive technician education.
  • Expenditures supported 2 CS PhD students and 1 month of summer support for Babu for the 3 year duration of the project.

[12]   “Improving Patient Safety with Interactive Virtual Environment Simulation for Direct Care Nurses,” St. Francis Foundation, Co-Principle Investigator (PI-Dr. Tracy Fasolino), Award Total: $41,999 (05/11 – 05/12).

  • Babu was Co-PI and lead the development of an interactive virtual patient simulation for patient safety and surveillance training.
  • Expenditures supported 1 CS PhD student for 1 year of the project.

[13]   “Instrumentation of Large Screen Stereoscopic Display for Perceptual Affordance Investigation”, NVIDIA Faculty Award, Principle Investigator, Award Total: $5,000 (01/10 – 12/10).

  • NVIDIA fellowship provided stereoscopic equipment, graphics cards, displays and some funding to setup Babu’s lab at Clemson University.

Other Sponsored Activity

[1]   “CU SEED-Tier 2: Investigating Thermoception in Interactive XR Simulations,” Clemson University Support for Early Exploration and Development (CU SEED) Grant, Principle Investigator, Total $10,000, (2/21-1/22).

[2]   “Investigating the Anthropomorphic Fidelity of Self-Avatars on Spatial Perception and Body Schema Representation in Immersive Virtual Environments,” Transformative Initiative for Generating Extramural Research (TIGER), Clemson University, Principle Investigator, Total $15,000, (01/18 – 01/19).

[3]   “Investigating Perceptual-Motor Synchrony and Coordination on Cybersickness, Skills Training, and Spatial Perception in a VR Rowing Simulator,” Brooks Sports Sciences Institute (BSSI) Seed Grant, Clemson University, Principle Investigator, Total $47,000, (01/17 – 12/17).

[4]   “A Virtual Experimenter as Means to Overcome Biases in Psychosomatic Research Methodology”, Transformative Initiative for Generating Extramural Research (TIGER), Clemson University, Principle Investigator, Total $20,000, (08/14 – 06/14).

[5]   “Enhancing Depth Estimation in Virtual Reality via Visuo-Motor Calibration”, University Research Grant Committee, Clemson University, Principle Investigator, Total $10,000, (08/13 – 09/14). 

[6]   “Using Virtual Peers to Investigate Social Influences in Children’s Bicycling,” Internal Funding Initiative, Social Sciences Funding Program – University of Iowa, Principle Investigator, Total $30,000, (05/09 – 12/09).