Lab Director - Bimal Balakrishnan

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Bimal Balakrishnan is a Professor in the School of Architecture and serves as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) at the Mississippi State University. His research and teaching interests are at the intersection of design thinking, advanced visualization, human-computer interaction, and media psychology. He draws on his academic training and research experience in architecture, media psychology, and human-computer interaction. At CAAD and Mississippi State, he leads the SIVA Lab, where he works with talented faculty and students on various visualization and simulation projects involving virtual and augmented reality tools. His team's work cuts across disciplinary boundaries. Recent and ongoing collaborative projects include transportation visualization, healthcare simulation and training, and immersive journalism.

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Prior to joining Mississippi State University, Dr. Balakrishnan established and led the iLab at the University of Missouri, which was selected as an Oculus NextGen program by Oculus (owned by Facebook), recognizing the lab’s innovative work in virtual reality. In 2012, the iLab was selected for project demonstrations at the annual conference of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) and our simulation projects have been presented at invited events such as the Immersive Reality Symposium at Penn State and Facebook headquarters. Dr. Balakrishnan’s previous research and creative projects involving advanced visualization have been supported by federal and state agencies, including NSF, ARL, FHWA, ACL/NIDILRR, and industry, including Facebook/Oculus and AT&T.

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He earned an M.S. in Architecture and a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from Penn State University with a graduate minor in applied statistics. He started his career in India as a licensed architect having earned a professional Bachelor of Architecture degree from the College of Engineering (Trivandrum), University of Kerala.