Associate Professor Nell Baghaei
Associate Professor

Nell Baghaei

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Background

Dr Nilufar (Nell) Baghaei is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Queensland, and Co-Director of the Mixed Reality Lab. She leads a high-impact, interdisciplinary research group focused on designing immersive technologies and games, and studying their effectiveness in improving mental health, physicial health and education outcomes.

Dr Baghaei has built a strong national and international reputation through prolific publications in top-tier venues, editorial and leadership roles in major journals and conferences, securing more than $3M in successful external grants (as lead CI or technical lead CI), and successful supervision of research students (Google Scholar h-index: 30; citations: 3700+). She is currently supervising 11 HDR students (6 as principal supervisor) and serves on several UQ committees. She was awarded the 2025 Faculty Research Excellence Award in the supervision category.

Dr Baghaei is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, and Games for Health Journal, and serves as the Organising Committee Member/Associate Chair for IEEE ISMAR and ACM CHI (A*-ranked conferences in immersive tech and HCI). She acted as Program Chair for the International Conference on Persuasive Technology (2022, 2024) and Associate Editor of Virtual Reality (2021-2026). Her research has been cited in policy and patent documents, and featured in media outlets including Psychology Today, MedicalXpress, and 7NEWS Australia. Prior to joining UQ, she led the Games and Extended Reality Lab at Massey University, New Zealand.

Availability

Associate Professor Nell Baghaei is:
Available for supervision
Media expert

Research interests

  • Virtual Reality, Game-based Learning, Digital Health, AI in Education, Persuasive Technology

Research impacts

  • I was awarded the 2025 Faculty Research Excellence Award in the Supervision category.

  • Media publicity: Featured on 7NEWS, together with my PhD student Achintha Abayasiri, discussing our research on VR games for rehabilitation.

  • My thesis student, Sarah Abdulkhalek, was named Valedictorian of the Class of 2025.

  • Nominated for a 2025 UQ Award for Excellence in the Reconciliation category.

  • EECS 2024 HDR awards: My PhD students, Vibhav Chitale and Achintha Abayasiri, were awarded the Most Innovative Thesis Topic (for a project on mobile games and mental health assessment) and Most Interesting Thesis Topic (for a project on VR visual illusions and balance) respectively.

  • My thesis student, Andrew Wong (co-supervised by Dr Yinshu Zhao), won the Most Innovative Use of XR award at 2024 UQ innovation Showcase for his project on "Effects of Customised AI Shopping Assistant in Virtual Reality Shopping".

  • 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

  • My PhD student, Yinshu (Claire) Zhao, 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".

  • My thesis student, Suki Zhang, won the Most Innovative Use of XR award at 2023 Innovation Showcase for her thesis project on Juiciness in VR Exergames.

  • 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)

  • 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/

  • 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)

  • 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)

  • 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)

Search Professor Nell Baghaei’s works on UQ eSpace

159 works between 2004 and 2027
All (159) Book (2) Journal Article (60) Edited Outputs (1) Conference Publication (94) Book Chapter (2)

101 - 120 of 159 works

2019

Conference Publication

Increasing self-compassion in young people through virtual reality

Baghaei, Nilufar, Hach, Sylvia, Khaliq, Imran, Stemmet, Lehan, Krishnan, Jamuna, Naslund, John, Liang, Hai-Ning and Sharifzadeh, Hamid (2019). Increasing self-compassion in young people through virtual reality. 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct), Beijing, China, 10-18 October 2019. Piscataway, NJ USA: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/ISMAR-Adjunct.2019.00042

Increasing self-compassion in young people through virtual reality

2019

Journal Article

MoodJumper: an exploration of game interface preferences in users with/out mood disorder

Baghaei, Nilufar, Hach, Sylvia, Liang, Hai-Ning and Brucker, Marvin (2019). MoodJumper: an exploration of game interface preferences in users with/out mood disorder. Frontiers in Public Health, 7 220. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00220

MoodJumper: an exploration of game interface preferences in users with/out mood disorder

2019

Conference Publication

Learning wear patterns on footwear outsoles using convolutional neural networks

Francis, Xavier, Sharifzadeh, Hamid, Newton, Angus, Baghaei, Nilufar and Varastehpour, Soheil (2019). Learning wear patterns on footwear outsoles using convolutional neural networks. 18th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/13th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE), Rotorua, New Zealand, 5-8 August. LOS ALAMITOS: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. doi: 10.1109/TrustCom/BigDataSE.2019.00067

Learning wear patterns on footwear outsoles using convolutional neural networks

2019

Journal Article

Engaging children with educational content via Gamification

Nand, Kalpana, Baghaei, Nilufar, Casey, John, Barmada, Bashar, Mehdipour, Farhad and Liang, Hai-Ning (2019). Engaging children with educational content via Gamification. Smart Learning Environments, 6 (1) 6, 1-15. doi: 10.1186/s40561-019-0085-2

Engaging children with educational content via Gamification

2019

Conference Publication

Virtual reality models for promoting learners engagement in construction studies

Samarasinghe, Don Amila Sajeevan, Latif, Suhaimi Abd and Baghaei, Nilufar (2019). Virtual reality models for promoting learners engagement in construction studies. 2019 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 8-11 April 2019. Piscataway, NJ USA: IEEE Computer Society. doi: 10.1109/EDUCON.2019.8725120

Virtual reality models for promoting learners engagement in construction studies

2018

Conference Publication

Correlating gamers' brainwaves to their subjective feelings in virtual reality games under different viewing perspectives

Monteiro, Diego, Liang, Hai-Ning and Baghaei, Nilufar (2018). Correlating gamers' brainwaves to their subjective feelings in virtual reality games under different viewing perspectives. 2020 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering Technologies (CHASE), Crystal City, VA, United States, 16 - 18 December 2020. Piscataway, NJ, United States: Association for Computing Machinery. doi: 10.1145/1234567890

Correlating gamers' brainwaves to their subjective feelings in virtual reality games under different viewing perspectives

2018

Conference Publication

Designing a virtual reality flight simulator

Halim, Ilona, Casey, John and Baghaei, Nilufar (2018). Designing a virtual reality flight simulator. ICCE 2018 - 26th International Conference on Computers in Education, Manila, Philippines, 26 - 30 November 2018. Taoyuan City, Taiwan: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Designing a virtual reality flight simulator

2018

Journal Article

A refinement of an iterative orthogonal projection method

Jamil, Noreen, Mirza, Farhaan, Naeem, M. Asif and Baghaei, Nilufar (2018). A refinement of an iterative orthogonal projection method. Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 341, 31-41. doi: 10.1016/j.cam.2018.02.025

A refinement of an iterative orthogonal projection method

2018

Journal Article

Train-for-life (T4L): an interactive learning platform for logistics, safety and security professionals

Barmada, Bashar and Baghaei, Nilufar (2018). Train-for-life (T4L): an interactive learning platform for logistics, safety and security professionals. Smart Learning Environments, 5 (1) 21, 1-15. doi: 10.1186/s40561-018-0072-z

Train-for-life (T4L): an interactive learning platform for logistics, safety and security professionals

2018

Conference Publication

Evaluating engagement of virtual reality games based on first and third person perspective using EEG and subjective metrics

Monteiro, Diego, Liang, Hai-Ning, Abel, Andrew, Bahaei, Nilufar and De Cassia Monteiro, Rita (2018). Evaluating engagement of virtual reality games based on first and third person perspective using EEG and subjective metrics. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality (AIVR), Taichung, Taiwan, 10-12 December 2018. Piscataway, NJ United States: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/AIVR.2018.00015

Evaluating engagement of virtual reality games based on first and third person perspective using EEG and subjective metrics

2018

Conference Publication

MoodRush: Designing a language-free mobile app for mood self-assessment

Hach, Sylvia, Baghaei, Nilufar, Jauny, Ray, Hayward, Christian and Sarrafzadeh, Abdolhossein (2018). MoodRush: Designing a language-free mobile app for mood self-assessment. 7th International Conference, MobiHealth, Vienna, Austria, 14-15 November 2017. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.

MoodRush: Designing a language-free mobile app for mood self-assessment

2018

Conference Publication

Improving students' performace through gamification: a user study

Nehring, Natalia, Baghaei, Nilufar and Dacey, Simon (2018). Improving students' performace through gamification: a user study. 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, Funchal, Portugal, 15-17 March 2018. Setubal, Portugal: SciTePress. doi: 10.5220/0006687402130218

Improving students' performace through gamification: a user study

2017

Conference Publication

Train-for-life: on-line interactive training for industry learners

Barmada, Bashar and Baghaei, Nilufar (2017). Train-for-life: on-line interactive training for industry learners. Unknown, Unknown, Unknown. Taoyuan City, Taiwan: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Train-for-life: on-line interactive training for industry learners

2017

Conference Publication

Engaging children in diabetes education through mobile games

Baghaei, Nilufar, Casey, John, Nandigam, David, Sarrafzadeh, Abdolhossein and Maddison, Ralph (2017). Engaging children in diabetes education through mobile games. International Conference on Mobile Learning 2017, Budapest, 10-12 April 2017. IADIS.

Engaging children in diabetes education through mobile games

2017

Conference Publication

Providing regular assessments and earlier feedback on moodle in an introductory computer science course: A user study

Nehring, Natalia, Dacey, Simon and Baghaei, Nilufar (2017). Providing regular assessments and earlier feedback on moodle in an introductory computer science course: A user study. 25th International Conference on Computers in Education, Christchurch, New Zealand, December 4-8. Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Providing regular assessments and earlier feedback on moodle in an introductory computer science course: A user study

2017

Conference Publication

Designing mobile applications for improving positive behaviour for learning (PB4L) pedagogy

Reddy, Lou, Baghaei, Nilufar, Vermeulen, Gerhard, Hilton, Craig and Steinhorn, Gregor (2017). Designing mobile applications for improving positive behaviour for learning (PB4L) pedagogy. 25th International Conference on Computers in Education, Christchurch, New Zealand, December 4-8. Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Designing mobile applications for improving positive behaviour for learning (PB4L) pedagogy

2017

Conference Publication

Designing a novel educational game for teaching C# programming

Hinds, Matthew, Baghaei, Nilufar, Ragon, Pedrito, Lambert, Jonathon, Rajakaruna, Tharindu, Houghton, Travers, Dacey, Simon and Casey, John (2017). Designing a novel educational game for teaching C# programming. 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, Porto, Portugal, April 21-23. SciTePress. doi: 10.5220/0006242000810086

Designing a novel educational game for teaching C# programming

2017

Conference Publication

Runjumpcode: An educational game for educating programming

Hinds, Matthew, Baghaei, Nilufar, Ragon, Pedrito, Lambert, Jonathon, Rajakaruna, Tharindu, Houghton, Travers and Dacey, Simon (2017). Runjumpcode: An educational game for educating programming. 13th International Conference Mobile Learning, Budapest, Hungary, 10-12 April 2017. Lisbon, Portugal: IADIS.

Runjumpcode: An educational game for educating programming

2016

Journal Article

Diabetic Mario: designing and evaluating mobile games for diabetes education

Baghaei, Nilufar, Nandigam, David, Casey, John, DIreito, Artur and Maddison, Ralph (2016). Diabetic Mario: designing and evaluating mobile games for diabetes education. Games for Health Journal, 5 (4), 270-278. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2015.0038

Diabetic Mario: designing and evaluating mobile games for diabetes education

2016

Conference Publication

Designing mobile games for improving self-esteem in children with ADHD

Baghaei, Nilufar, Casey, John, Ahmad, Yvette, Liang, Hai-Ning and Yu, Zhen (2016). Designing mobile games for improving self-esteem in children with ADHD. ICSLE 2015, Sinaia, Romania, 23 - 25 September 2015. Singapore: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-981-287-868-7_6

Designing mobile games for improving self-esteem in children with ADHD

Current funding

  • 2026 - 2031
    Reducing ageism in healthcare
    ARC Linkage Projects
    Open grant

Availability

Associate Professor Nell Baghaei is:
Available for supervision

Looking for a supervisor? Read our advice on how to choose a supervisor.

Available projects

  • Virtual Reality & Serious 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

Completed supervision

Enquiries

Contact Associate Professor Nell Baghaei directly for media enquiries about:

  • Games for Health
  • Immersive Technologies for Education
  • Immersive Technologies for Health
  • Persuasive Technology

Need help?

For help with finding experts, story ideas and media enquiries, contact our Media team:

communications@uq.edu.au