Overview
Background
Dr Nilufar (Nell) Baghaei is a Senior Lecturer within the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Queensland and the Co-Director of the Mixed Reality Lab. Her research interests are Virtual Reality, Game-based Learning, AI in Education and Persuasive Technology (Google Scholar h-index: 26, citations: 2061+). She is an Associate Editor of Int Journal Human-Computer Studies, Virtual Reality Springer and Games for Health, and is on the Editorial Board/Programme Committee of several other journals and international conferences. She was one of the Programme Chairs for the International Conference on Persuasive Technology 2024. Dr Baghaei is supervising a number of HDR students on Games and VR related topics and sits on various UQ committees. Before joining UQ, she directed the Games and Extended Reality Lab at Massey University, New Zealand, and held multiple leadership positions in the ITP sector. Prior to that, she was a researcher at CSIRO.
Availability
- Dr Nell Baghaei is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Research interests
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Virtual Reality
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Game-based Learning
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AI in Education
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Persuasive Technology
Research impacts
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Best Paper award - Honorable Mention for "Breaking the Isolation: Exploring the Impact of Passthrough in Shared Spaces on Player Performance and Experience in VR Exergames" IEEE VR (A*-ranked conference) 2024
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Yinshu Zhao (my PhD student) won an Honorable Mention for best DC presentation at IEEE ISMAR 2023 (A*-ranked conference) for her project on Impact of Avatars on Shoppers’ Perception and Behaviour in Immersive Virtual Stores.
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Suki Zhang (my thesis student) won the Most Innovative Use of XR award at 2023 Innovation Showcase for her thesis project on Juiciness in VR Exergames.
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Nominated for Best Paper award "Augmented Reality Applications in the Classroom: Teachers’ Experience", Al Omair, H., Mendoza, A., Boden, M., Baghaei, N., International Conference on Computers in Education (2022)
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Featured in Psychology today for VR and Mental Health project (published in JMIR 2021): New Research Finds Virtual Reality Can Help Treat Anxiety: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202109/new-research-finds-virtual-reality-can-help-treat-anxiety https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/new-research-finds-virtual-reality-could-help-treat-anxiety/
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Nominated for Best Paper award "Persuasive Virtual Reality: Promoting Earth Buildings in New Zealand", Don Samarasinghe, Nilufar Baghaei and Lehan Stemmet, International Conference on Persuasive Technology (2020)
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Edu-games guru, Dr Baghaei talks to Careers with STEM about some of her research projects, challenges faced along the way and gives some advice to young women who want to learn about and pursue a career in ST (2018)
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Runner-up Award for leading a research project entitled “Feasibility of Diabetic Mario Mobile Game to Improve Diabetes Self-management”, funded by Health Research Council, in collaboration with the University of Auckland - Unitec (2017)
Works
Search Professor Nell Baghaei’s works on UQ eSpace
2021
Journal Article
Persuasion via gamification: Supporting positive behaviour for learning (PB4L) school-wide pedagogy
Reddy, Lou, Baghaei, Nilufar, Reinders, Hayo, Ahmed, Ali and Sardareh, Sedigheh Abbasnasab (2021). Persuasion via gamification: Supporting positive behaviour for learning (PB4L) school-wide pedagogy. Set: Research Information for Teachers (2), 20-25. doi: 10.18296/set.0200
2021
Journal Article
Contact tracing: ensuring privacy and security
Leeuwen, Daan Storm van, Ahmed, Ali, Watterson, Craig and Baghaei, Nilufar (2021). Contact tracing: ensuring privacy and security. Applied Sciences, 11 (21) 9977, 1-17. doi: 10.3390/app11219977
2021
Conference Publication
Designing games for stealth health and healthy lifestyle education
Baghaei, Nilufar, Halim, Ilona, Casey, John, Marsh, Samantha and Maddison, Ralph (2021). Designing games for stealth health and healthy lifestyle education. 29th International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE), Online, 22-26 November 2021. Taoyuan City, Taiwan: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.
2021
Journal Article
Effects of an immersive virtual reality exergame on university students’ anxiety, depression, and perceived stress: pilot feasibility and usability study
Xu, Wenge, Liang, Hai-Ning, Baghaei, Nilufar, Ma, Xiaoyue, Yu, Kangyou, Meng, Xuanru and Wen, Shaoyue (2021). Effects of an immersive virtual reality exergame on university students’ anxiety, depression, and perceived stress: pilot feasibility and usability study. JMIR Serious Games, 9 (4) e29330, 1-9. doi: 10.2196/29330
2021
Journal Article
Virtual reality for supporting the treatment of depression and anxiety: scoping review
Baghaei, Nilufar, Chitale, Vibhav, Hlasnik, Andrej, Stemmet, Lehan, Liang, Hai-Ning and Porter, Richard (2021). Virtual reality for supporting the treatment of depression and anxiety: scoping review. JMIR Mental Health, 8 (9) e29681, 1-14. doi: 10.2196/29681
2021
Journal Article
Games for Mental Health (Special Issue)
Baghaei, Nilufar, Liang, Hai-Ning, Naslund, John and Porter, Richard (2021). Games for Mental Health (Special Issue). Games for Health Journal, 10 (4), 205-206. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2021.7021.cfp
2021
Conference Publication
Designing individualised virtual reality applications for supporting depression: a feasibility study
Baghaei, Nilufar, Stemmet, Lehan, Khaliq, Imran, Ahmadi, Atefeh, Halim, Ilona, Liang, Hai-Ning, Xu, Wenge, Billinghurst, Mark and Porter, Richard (2021). Designing individualised virtual reality applications for supporting depression: a feasibility study. ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems, Virtual (Netherlands), 8-11 June 2021. New York, NY, United States: Association for Computing Machinery. doi: 10.1145/3459926.3464761
2021
Conference Publication
Playbook: an animation-based game for improving children's creativity and problem solving skills
Farzinnejad, Forouzan, Habibi, Jafar and Baghaei, Nilufar (2021). Playbook: an animation-based game for improving children's creativity and problem solving skills. EICS '21: ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems, Virtual, 8-11 June 2021. New York, NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery. doi: 10.1145/3459926.3464748
2021
Conference Publication
Effect of gameplay uncertainty, display type, and age on virtual reality exergames
Xu, Wenge, Liang, Hai-Ning, Yu, Kangyou and Baghaei, Nilufar (2021). Effect of gameplay uncertainty, display type, and age on virtual reality exergames. CHI '21: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Yokohama, Japan, 8-13 May 2021. New York, NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery. doi: 10.1145/3411764.3445801
2021
Conference Publication
Individualised virtual reality for supporting depression: feedback from mental health professionals
Baghaei, Nilufar, Ahmadi, Atefeh, Khaliq, Imran and Liang, Hai-Ning (2021). Individualised virtual reality for supporting depression: feedback from mental health professionals. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct), Bari, Italy, 4-8 October 2021. Piscataway, NJ, United States: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/ISMAR-Adjunct54149.2021.00022
2021
Conference Publication
Effect of input-output randomness on gameplay satisfaction in collectable card games
Zhang, Yiwen, Monteiro, Diego, Liang, Hai-Ning, Ma, Jieming and Baghaei, Nilufar (2021). Effect of input-output randomness on gameplay satisfaction in collectable card games. IEEE Conference on Games (IEEE CoG), Electr Network, 17-21 August 2021. New York, NY USA: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/cog52621.2021.9619020
2021
Conference Publication
Supporting decision-making in the construction and property sectors through persuasive virtual reality: a pilot study
He, Peijin, Samarasinghe, Don, Liu, Cyrus, Jelodar, Mostafa Babaeian, Playne, Daniel and Baghaei, Nilufar (2021). Supporting decision-making in the construction and property sectors through persuasive virtual reality: a pilot study. The Australasian Universities Building Education Association (AUBEA 2021), Melbourne, VIC Australia, 27-29 October 2021.
2021
Conference Publication
Assessing telepresence, social presence and stress response in a virtual reality store
Zhao, Yinshu, Baghaei, Nilufar, Schnack, Alexander and Stemmet, Lehan (2021). Assessing telepresence, social presence and stress response in a virtual reality store. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct), Bari, Italy, 4-8 October 2021. Piscataway, NJ, United States: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/ISMAR-Adjunct54149.2021.00020
2020
Journal Article
Studying the effect of display type and viewing perspective on user experience in virtual reality exergames
Xu, Wenge, Liang, Hai-Ning, Zhang, Zeying and Baghaei, Nilufar (2020). Studying the effect of display type and viewing perspective on user experience in virtual reality exergames. Games for Health Journal, 9 (6), 405-414. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2019.0102
2020
Journal Article
Supporting disease prevention and lifestyle changes through gaming
Baghaei, Nilufar, Fowler, Allan and Maddison, Ralph (2020). Supporting disease prevention and lifestyle changes through gaming. Games for Health Journal, 9 (6), 387-388. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2020.0161
2020
Journal Article
Health benefits of digital videogames for the aging population: a systematic review
Xu, Wenge, Liang, Hai-Ning, Baghaei, Nilufar, Wu Berberich, Bing and Yue, Yong (2020). Health benefits of digital videogames for the aging population: a systematic review. Games for Health Journal, 9 (6), 389-404. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2019.0130
2020
Conference Publication
Enhancing customers' knowledge and decision making using augmented reality
Boonrat, Wisanoo, Vaidya, Vimita, Baghaei, Nilufar, Sharifzadeh, Hamid, Ahmed, Ali and Casey, John (2020). Enhancing customers' knowledge and decision making using augmented reality. ICCE 2020 - 28th International Conference on Computers in Education, Online, 23 - 27 November 2020. Taoyuan County, Taiwan: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.
2020
Conference Publication
Distance learning practices: A reflective study
Ahmed, Ali, Watterson, Craig, Baghaei, Nilufar and Lundqvist, Karsten (2020). Distance learning practices: A reflective study. ICCE 2020 - 28th International Conference on Computers in Education, Online, 23 - 27 November 2020. Taoyuan County, Taiwan: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.
2020
Conference Publication
Teaching cyber-security for distance learners: a reflective study
Ahmed, Ali, Lundqvist, Karsten, Watterson, Craig and Baghaei, Nilufar (2020). Teaching cyber-security for distance learners: a reflective study. 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Uppsala, Sweden, 21-24 October 2020. Piscataway, NJ USA: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274062
2020
Conference Publication
LAMCO: A Layered Approach to Mobile Application Computation Offloading
Ballan, Yousef, Ahmed, Ali and Baghaei, Nilufar (2020). LAMCO: A Layered Approach to Mobile Application Computation Offloading. 16th International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference, IWCMC, Limassol, Cyprus, June 15-19. NEW YORK: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. doi: 10.1109/IWCMC48107.2020.9148493
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Nell Baghaei is:
- Available for supervision
Before you email them, read our advice on how to contact a supervisor.
Available projects
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Virtual Reality & Games projects
- Virtual Reality and Mental Health - The goal of this project is to enhance self-compassion in people with depression using individualised virtual reality. Example (built in Unity): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3GpcDLUpQ
- Virtual Reality and Education - The goal is to enhance people's education (in Construction, Australian history, maths or other fields) using virtual reality. A sample project (built using Unity): https://youtu.be/axpDf1d4X5k
- Games for Health - The goal of this project is to create mobile games (or build further on top of existing ones) to support people with different health conditions. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4zk6M3Ec5U
- Virtual Reality and shopping habits - The idea of this project is to use virtual reality to examine and experiment with people's shopping habits. Example (built in Unreal engine): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K32qXuUrE8Y
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Doctor Philosophy
Introducing Intelligent Avatars in a Virtual Simulated Store
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Marie Boden
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Doctor Philosophy
Enhancing Auditory Immersion in Interactive Virtual Reality Environments
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Eve Klein
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Doctor Philosophy
Engaging Senior Citizens with Cyber Safety through Educational Games
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Marie Boden, Dr Hassan Khosravi, Associate Professor Jason Lodge
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Doctor Philosophy
Digital Phenotyping Framework for Predicting Anxiety and Depression Symptoms using Game Analytics
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Ben Matthews, Professor Julie Henry
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Doctor Philosophy
Effects of Virtual Perturbations and Visual Illusions on Gait and Balance
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Taylor Dick, Dr Antonio Padilha Lanari Bo
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Doctor Philosophy
Assessing prospective memory function in the actual and virtual world.
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Julie Henry, Dr Sarah Coundouris
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Doctor Philosophy
Augmented Reality applications in the classroom
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Marie Boden
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Doctor Philosophy
Capturing digital biomarkers of mental health in the virtual world.
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Sarah Grainger, Dr Sarah Coundouris, Professor Julie Henry
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Doctor Philosophy
The Use of Ethnochemistry Based Augmented Reality to Integrate Multiple Representations in Chemistry Classes and Its Influence on Indonesian Students' Mental Models
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Jack Wang, Professor Gwendolyn Lawrie
Media
Enquiries
Contact Dr Nell Baghaei directly for media enquiries about their areas of expertise.
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