Principal Investigator

Principal Investigator

Dr. Eakta Jain

Eakta Jain is an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. She received her PhD and MS degrees in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and her B.Tech. degree from IIT Kanpur. She has industry experience at Texas Instruments R&D labs, Disney Research Pittsburgh, and the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Dr. Jain is interested in the safety, privacy and security of data gathered for user modeling, particularly eye tracking data. Her areas of work include graphics and virtual reality, generation of avatars, human factors in the future of work and transportation, and human-robot interaction. Her research has been nominated for multiple best paper awards and featured in news articles and popular podcasts. Her lab has been funded through faculty research awards from Meta and Google, federal funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, US Department of Transportation, and state funding from the Florida Department of Transportation. Dr. Jain is an ACM Senior Member. She served as the Technical Program Chair for ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research (2020) and Applications and ACM/Eurographics Symposium on Applied Perception (2021). She served on the ACM SAP Steering Committee (2022-2024) and currently serves as an elected Director on the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee (2022-2025, Chair 2024-25).

CV

Awards/ Funding

  1. Meta Unrestricted Research Gift (PI, 2024-2025) “Multimodal VR/AR/XR Privacy”
  2. National Institute for Mental Health “AVAIL: Anonymization of Videos using AI for Large scale data sharing” (2024-2029)
  3. Meta Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award 2022
  4. Collaborative Proposal: SaTC: Frontier: Securing the Future of Computing for Marginalized and Vulnerable Populations
  5. USDOT Inclusive Design Challenge “Optimizing Highly Automated Driving Systems for People with Cognitive Disabilities” (2021-2022)
  6. NIH R21 “Protecting the privacy of the child through facial identity removal in recorded behavioral observation sessions” (2020-2022)
  7. NSF FW-HTF-P: Advancing the future work of nuclear operators through virtual reality-based training (2020-2021)
  8. UFII Seed Fund Award “Assessing Political Representation Using Neural Networks” (2020)
  9. UFII Seed Fund Award “Adapting In-Store Theft Prevention Technology to Detect Malicious Coughing and Product Tampering” (2020)
  10. Florida Department of Transportation “l-STREET lnitiative – Evaluation of lntelligent School Zone Beacon and Vehicle-Cyclist Detection and Warning System” (2018-2020)
  11. NSF CRII: RI 1566481 (2016-2018)
  12. Youtube Faculty Research Award (2016-2021)
  13. Facebook Oculus Research Gift (2016)
  14. Honorable Mention Best Paper: ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP), 2012. (Project Page)
  15. Best Paper Award: Proceedings of the Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA), 2010. (Project Page)

Professional Activities

2024
  1. SIGGRAPH EC Director (2022-2025), Chair-Elect (2023-24), Chair (2024-25)
  2. ACM SAP Steering Committee
  3. Guest Editor, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception Special Issue
2023
  1. SIGGRAPH EC Director (2022-2025)
  2. ACM SAP Steering Committee
  3. IEEE VGTC 2023 Awards Committee
  4. Reviewer: ACM SIGGRAPH 2023, ACM TOCHI, ACM SAP 2023. ACM TOG, IEEE S&P Magazine Special Issue on Security and Privacy for the Metaverse.
2022
  1. SIGGRAPH EC Director (2022-2025)
  2. ACM SAP Steering Committee
  3. Program Committees: ACM SAP 2022, ACM ETRA 2023
  4. IEEE VGTC 2022 Award Committee
  5. ACM ETRA 2023 Doctoral Symposium Mentor
  6. Reviewer: ACM CHI 2023, IEEE VR 2023
2021
  1. Technical Papers Chair: ACM SAP 2021
  2. Program Committees: ACM SIGGRAPH 2021
  3. Review Editor: Frontiers in Virtual Reality
  4. Reviewer: ACM Computing Surveys
2020
  1. Technical papers chair: ACM ETRA 2020
  2. Program Committee: ACM SAP 2020
  3. Reviewer: ACM Computing Surveys, Computing Innovation Fellows
  4. Review Editor: Frontiers in Virtual Reality
2019
  1. Program Committee: ACM SIGGRAPH Asia, ACM ETRA, IEEE VR
  2. Reviewer: ACM Transactions on Graphics, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception
  3. Posters Chair: ACM ETRA
2018
  1. Program committees: ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM SAP, ICMR
  2. Reviewer: ACM Transactions on Graphics, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, ETRA, AIVR
2017
  1. Posters Chair: Eurographics
  2. Program committee: ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM SAP Pacific Graphics, Workshop on Human-Centered Computational Sensing, Eurographics
  3. Reviewer: SIGGRAPH Asia, ACM SIGCHI, ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), ICME Workshop on Multimedia Artworks Analysis (MMArt)
2016
  1. Reviewer: ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM SIGGRAPH Asia, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, ACM Computing Surveys, Eurographics, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine
  2. Conference Co-Chair: ACM/Eurographics Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP)
  3. Program Committee: ACM/Eurographics Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP), ICME International Workshop on Multimedia Artworks Analysis
2015
  1. Program Committee: ACM Multimedia, ACM/Eurographics Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP), Eurographics
  2. Technical Briefs and Poster Committee: ACM SIGGRAPH Asia
  3. Reviewer: ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM Transactions on Graphics, Graphics Interface
  4. Outreach: Posters Judge at the 2015 Florida Junior Science, Engineering, and Humanities Symposium, Stop-motion Animation Camp at Harn Museum
2014
  1. Reviewer: ACM SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia
  2. Outreach: Presenter at the 2014 Art in Engineering Museum Night at the UF Harn Museum of Art
2009 – 2012
  1. Reviewer: ACM Transactions on Graphics (2012), ACM SIGGRAPH Asia (2012), ACM SIGGRAPH (2011)
  2. Outreach: Fusion Forum, A recruitment event for under-represented minorities (2011, 2009)