The Department is pleased to welcome Tabitha Peck, a visiting faculty member for the 2012-13 academic year.

The Ohio native is no stranger to North Carolina, having received her doctorate in computer science from UNC at Chapel Hill in 2010, with a focus on virtual reality. She is teaching the undergraduate data structures and algorithms course (CPS 201) this fall and spring, and she will add a computer graphics course (CPS 344) to her Duke teaching repertoire in fall 2013.

For the last two years Peck worked in Spain as a post-doctoral researcher at the Experimental Virtual Environments Lab for Neuroscience and Technology (EVENT) at the University of Barcelona. Using a large virtual reality system at EVENT similar to the Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE), she focused on the psychological effects of virtual body-swap illusions, examining what happens when people are placed in a virtual body that is heavier, thinner, taller, shorter, older, younger or of a different gender.

“The basic result that we’re finding is that, yes, we can put somebody inside a virtual body that is not their own, and people will accept it as an extension of their actual body,” Peck said. She noted that one study showed a man embodied in a young female avatar. While inhabiting the child's virtual body, the man receives a “slap” and experiences considerably more sympathy for the young girl than if he experiences a similar virtual scenario as himself, or as a mere witness to the “slap.”

“She has a rigorous and creative approach to her research, in which she explores technical and human factors alike,” department Chair Carlo Tomasi said. “I tremendously enjoyed a conversation with her about her work. She explained to me how virtual reality can be used to give someone the illusion of wearing a skin of a different color and that the experience causes measurable shifts in racial bias. She showed me how one can be made to walk in a small room wearing VR goggles and yet feel one is walking in a much larger space.”

“She has come to Duke to help us teach both introductory and not so introductory courses in computer science, but she is already leaving a bigger mark through her connections in her exciting area of research,” Tomasi added.