Sam Thompson

XR Engineer & Researcher

PhD researcher at the University of Cambridge specialising in XR, social VR, embodied AI, and human-computer interaction. Building production-ready immersive systems backed by research and user evaluation.

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10+ Publications
Cambridge PhD Researcher
XR + AI Systems Builder
Open to XR Research Engineer, AI/XR Engineer, and Technical R&D opportunities.

Featured Projects

Selected projects in XR, games, and interactive systems.

Embodied conversational agents in social VR
OpenAI API Android XR

Embodied Conversational Agents

A social VR prototype combining large language models with embodied avatars, deployed on mobile hardware to explore real-time, in-headset interaction.

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XR super resolution pipeline
Reconstruction Unity Pytorch

XR Super Resolution

A stereoscopic super-resolution pipeline for head‑mounted displays, fusing RGB, depth, and motion vectors to upscale XR scenes while keeping performance viable. I especially focused on generating the training dataset, working with scene RGB, depth, and motion vector information.

GitHub Source
Impossible Spaces VR locomotion system
Research HCI Unity

Impossible Spaces VR

The engine behind my redirected walking research: a non‑Euclidean museum environment that lets users walk infinitely in a finite tracked space.

GitHub Source
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Research & Publications

Recent work in HCI, social VR, and embodied interaction.

2026
Poster on personalised avatars in social VR

Investigating Personalised Avatars with Face Tracking in Social VR

In press · CHI 2026 Extended Abstracts (Poster)

Exploring how personalised, face-tracked avatars shape identity expression and social presence in social VR.

Social VR Embodiment Avatars
2024
Poster on impossible spaces in VR

Now You're Thinking with Portals: Investigating Episodic Memory and Locomotion with Redirected Walking in Impossible Spaces

Virtual Worlds 4 (3), 39

VR Locomotion Redirected Walking Spatial Memory
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2024
Exergaming user study

That's the Way I (Dis-) Like It! Effect of Gamer Types and Competitiveness in VR Exergaming

ACM CHI PLAY 2024

HCI Gamification VR Exergaming
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2023
VR application for gamified stroke rehabilitation

Relationship between Motivational Strategies and Gamification User Types in VR Movement Games

IVCNZ 2023 · First author

Personalisation User Types Gamification
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