We have two guests today, Samarth Singhal and Yasamin Hashmet. Both of them are the graduates from SIAT, SFU.

Samarth is currently a senior design researcher at Unity, which is a real time development platform for 2D, 3D, and virtual environments, such as AR and VR. Having a Masters in human-computer interaction from SIAT, Samarth got a chance to work with big tech names such as North, which is acquired by Google, Microsoft Research, Samsung, and Curatio. Samarth’s research interests lie at the intersection of human-computer interaction, ubiquitous and wearable computing, and 3D systems. In his current role, he is part of the Unity Create Solutions exploring the potential and possibilities of real-time 3D technologies to transform non-gaming industries.

Yasamin is currently a UX researcher at Electronic Arts here in Vancouver. She received her PhD. From the school of Interactive Arts & Technology in Simon Fraser University where she explored domestic technologies such as friends geocaching with telepresence robots, telemedicine, and family communication over different time zones. During her PhD, she designed and created three different computational artifacts for family storytelling over different time zones. During her master's, she also developed machine learning algorithms to improve recommender systems based on Yelp Dataset. Her work at EA includes designing new prototypes for games, running usability studies, answering different research questions for creating a game from early stages to full release including evaluating features, highlighting the needs of players, and so on.