Where Virtual Worlds Meet Human Behavior
The Omni-Reality & Cognition Lab builds virtual, augmented and mixed reality simulators, instruments them with eye tracking and physiological sensing, and uses them to design safer streets, healthier buildings and better training for high-stakes work.
About the Lab
We build virtual, augmented and mixed reality simulators with eye tracking and physiological sensing, and pair them with field studies and AI. We use them to test designs before they are built, train people for high-stakes work, and study behavior that is unsafe or impractical to observe in the real world, from streets and bike lanes to buildings and hospital rooms.
ORCL is co-directed by Arsalan Heydarian and Donna Chen and is part of UVA's Link Lab. Its projects are supported by the National Science Foundation, the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, Leidos, and UVA's Coulter Center for Translational Research and School of Data Science.
Contact Us
ORCL is in Thornton Hall, Room D107, at the University of Virginia. Email [email protected].
Prospective students and collaborators are welcome to write with their interests.
ORCL by the Numbers
4 Immersive simulators
Bicycle, e-scooter, pedestrian and driving simulators in Thornton Hall.
See our facilities25 VR, AR and MR headsets
Meta Quest, HTC Vive Pro Eye, Apple Vision Pro and Microsoft HoloLens.
9 Research projects
Across transportation, micromobility, health care, cybersecurity and human factors.
Explore our research43 Students in our XR course
Across three semesters of World Building with Virtual and Augmented Reality.
About the course-
Ph.D. Dissertation Defense by Carreen de Cárdenas
Dissertation: “Seeing and Shaping Cities: Applying Eye-Tracking in Real-World and Virtual Environments to Enhance User-Centric Transportation Design”
Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PMLocation: Rotunda Dome Room, University of Virginia -
Ph.D. Proposal Presentation by Saja Alnusair
Dissertation proposal on noise, acoustics and distraction in buildings, studied with VR and simulation.
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PMLocation: Olsson Hall, Room 103
Research Across Domains
Immersive simulation, eye tracking, physiological sensing and AI form one toolkit, and it carries from one field to the next.
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Transportation Safety
Bicycle, e-scooter and pedestrian simulators, naturalistic riding studies and virtual reality design review with the Virginia Department of Transportation.
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Health Care
Virtual reality training for recognizing and responding to acutely deteriorating patients, with AI-driven care team members.
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Cybersecurity
An immersive cyber range that prepares Virginia's workforce to defend the operational technology that runs critical infrastructure.
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Human Factors and Sensing
Eye tracking, heart rate and electrodermal activity show how people perceive risk and make decisions in the lab and on the street.
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Micromobility Safety
How e-scooter and bicycle riders, including teens, scan the road and handle risk, on real streets and in our simulators.
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XR Education
A civil and environmental engineering course in which student teams build virtual and augmented reality worlds for real problems.
Watch: A Drive in Our Simulator
A first-person run through ORCL's driving simulator, built in Unreal Engine. Our bicycle, e-scooter and pedestrian simulators put riders and walkers in the same kind of virtual streets.
Projects and Engagement
A look at ORCL's simulators, research projects and students.
Bicycle and pedestrian simulators: testing street designs before they are built.
Virtual streets built to scale for design and training studies.
World Building with VR/AR: students build immersive applications in ORCL.
VR for design review: agency staff and the public ride through proposed designs.
Adolescent micromobility safety: an NSF project on safer bicycle and e-scooter riding for teens.
Link Lab Research Day 2026: a lab member shows visitors the VR bicycle simulator.
Work With Us
We are actively looking to expand our collaborations with industry, government agencies, health systems and universities. Reach out about sponsored research, project partnerships, funding, student engagement or a visit to our lab in Thornton Hall, Room D107.