Vicky McArthur

Biography

My primary research interests fall within the field of HCI with a focus on game design, digital humanities, and storytelling in augmented and virtual reality. My research is currently funded by SSHRC, NSERC, and CFI. I am the co-director of MARVEL (the Mixed and Augmented Reality and Virtual Environments Lab) where we have a dedicated optical tracking space, inertial MoCap suits, 360 cameras, and a fleet of head-mounted displays (HMDs). I publish in a variety of venues across computer science (Association of Computing Machinery Symposium on Computer Human Interaction, the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, Behaviour and Information Technology), media studies (Feminist Media Studies), psychology (Frontiers in Psychology), and the interactive arts (International Symposium on Electronic Art, the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories). I have won multiple awards including a Young Network Investigator Award in 2014 (GRAND-NCE), a Research Achievement Award in 2021, a Research Excellence Award in 2022, and numerous best paper and honourable mention awards on publications in the ACM.

As an undergraduate student I participated in a one-year exchange to Japan, where I studied at Nagoya Gakuin University. In 2024 I was a visiting researcher at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan where I collaborated on VR research projects. In addition to continuing my Japanese language studies to maintain fluency, I also enjoy gaming (console, PC, tabletop, and TCGs), paddle sports, and competing recreationally in Muay Thai.

Recent Publications

1. Yao, L., Bucchieri, F., McArthur, V., Bezerianos, A., and Isenberg, P. (2024) Situated Visualization in Motion for Video Games: A Case Study and Design Considerations, in Proceedings of the IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS 2024).
2. Bahng, S., and McArthur, V. (2024) Exploring Augmented Reality as an Artistic Tool: A Workshop-based Study with South Korean Artists, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2024).
3. Pandita, S., Ratan, R., Kim, T., Jang, D., Lim, C., Xu, K., Won, A.S., Stavropoulos, V., Sinlapanuntakul, P., Praetorius, A.S., Peña, J., Park, I., Nowak, K., Matthews, N., McArthur, V., Lin, J., Lee, K.M., Klebig, B., Kim, S.S., Kao, D., Kahn, A.S., Jeong, D.C., Hasler, B., Harrell, F., Han, E., Gambino, A., Downs, E., Cummings, J., Cook, C.L., Hsueh Hua Chen, V., Banakou, D., Aymerich-Franch, L. (2024) The Development and Validation of the Motivations for Avatar-Mediated Meetings (MAMM) Scale, presented at International Communication Association (ICA 2024)
4. Bahng, S., McArthur, V., and Kelly, R. (2023) Designing Immersive Stories with Novice VR Creators: A Study of Autobiographical VR Storytelling During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 4,
5. McArthur, V. and Munteanu, C. (2023) HMC and HCI: Cognates in a Journey, in The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication, Guzman, A. L., McEwen, R., and Jones, S. (Eds.), SAGE. Pp. 78 – 88.
6. McArthur, V. (2022) Zork, in Fifty Key Videogames, Fifty Key Video Games, Arsenault, D., Boudreau, K., Perron, B. and Wolf, M. J. P., Routledge, pp. 305 – 312.
7. Czerwonka, S., Alvarez, A., & McArthur, V. (2021) One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames, Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 695258.
8. McArthur, V. (2021) “The Throne for a Soul”: A Study of the Storytelling Affordances of Japanese VR Games, in Replaying Japan, 3(1), pp. 65-76.
9. McArthur, V. (2020) 漢字物語: Design Considerations for a Visual Storytelling Approach to Japanese Language Learning in Augmented Reality, Replaying Japan, 2(1), pp. 95-104.