UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. —The Penn State Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE) aims to create a “convergence accelerator for research” across the commonwealth at Penn State, according to Jessica Menold, CIE director, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) co-hire and associate professor of mechanical engineering and of industrial and manufacturing engineering.
The center’s mission is to “provide cutting-edge technologies, knowledge and skills to the Penn State community with the goal to create leadership in immersive experiences by advancing the underlying science and integrating it into the academic spectrum through research, education and outreach,” according to the website.
“Because immersive technology is not field dependent, it gives us an opportunity to really operate as a connector,” Menold said. “It allows us to support larger level collaborations across universities and colleges and build bridges for faculty.”
Menold, who started as CIE director in July of 2023, started at Penn State as an assistant faculty member in 2018, after completing a post-doc at RWTH Aachen University in the Technology and Innovation Management group in Germany. It was then that she established the Technology and Human Research and Engineering Design (THREAD) Lab.
“My research really focuses on understanding the linages between people, process and products, with a particular focus on the design of complex engineering systems and products. The overarching goal of my research is to understand how humans and technology interact to solve complex problems,” Menold said. “My favorite part about my job is research.”
When Menold received tenure, she wanted to create more of an impact and take on more leadership roles and responsibilities at Penn State. That’s when she was introduced to ICDS and the open role for CIE’s director.
“A lot of my research in engineering has really evaluated technologies and their effects on all aspects of engineering design processes,” Menold said. “It seemed like it was a great fit. I have spent the year working to expand research horizons at the center, working very closely with the associate director, Patrick Dudas, and the rest of the CIE and Research Innovations with Scientists and Engineers (RISE) teams.”
In working on research with those teams, Menold had the opportunity to work on a wide range of topics with the chance to deepen the understanding of the utility of virtual and augmented realities to accelerate fundamental research efforts.
“It’s been really eye-opening,” Menold said. “At CIE, we have been working together to figure out novel ways to support fundamental research at Penn State through immersive technologies...VR, AR and xR. These platforms stretch across a variety of interesting research areas, many of which are outside my own field, such as quantum computing or semiconductors. What’s been incredibly rewarding is collaboratively working with PIs to not only support their own research ideas, but to extend the proposed work by integrating both immersive technologies and research methods and theories from my own field, engineering design.”
CIE offers a variety of services including custom software and immersive experience development, grant development to support research, novel educational and broader impacts activities, access to VR, AR and MR equipment and the creation of high-fidelity digital twins.
Digital twins are a virtual replica of a physical object, person or process that are integrated, often, with real-time data, providing users with accurate models of system state, that can be used to increase understanding of complex systems.
“A huge interest in research, when partnering with artificial intelligence (AI), is digital twinning,” Menold said. “We are looking to move from this idea of digital twins as this superficial visual model but rather looking at it as a real, active, live update of the system you are twinning that relies on and integrates AI, large data sets and real-time feedback loops. One of the core areas at CIE is digital twinning.”
Menold, in collaboration with Scarlett Miller, professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering and mechanical engineering, was recently awarded a grant from National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE), to use digital twins to explore cybersecurity vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure environments. Specifically, Menold and Miller, who is also the director of the Center for Research in Design and Innovation, will use VR to investigate human operators’ trust in AI, identifying vulnerabilities and proposing mitigation strategies to improve the security of critical infrastructure environments.
“We are excited to conduct that project,” Menold said.
Menold is also the primary investigator on a two-phase project that was awarded $392,000 from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The project aims to build a strong science- and technology-focused (STF) workforce in the state’s Mon Valley region through collaboration and virtual, augmented and mixed reality trainings and tools. Menold is working on the “Immersive upskilling for STF Workers” project with Megan Nagel, chancellor and chief academic officer at Penn State Greater Allegheny. The Penn State researchers will work directly with local manufacturers to better understand the needs of the workforce and develop technology to meet those needs, bridging the gap and lowering barriers for workers in the region.
“I would love for CIE to become a hub where research disciplines across the campuses can converge, interact and spawn novel research collaborations, as well as work at the intersections of multiple fields,” Menold said.