Controlling an avatar’s face
Exploring how facial expressions can be selected and communicated in VR, including controller-based alternatives to dedicated face tracking.
J.K. Sangeeth Chandran / Fourth-year PhD
Researcher.
Developer.
I’m a doctoral candidate researching interactions with virtual humans in VR, with over five years of Unity development experience across both personal and professional projects. My work combines human-centred research with hands-on VR development.
Doctoral candidate · Technological University Dublin
Current work / Personality-driven virtual humansAI driven characters with controllable personalities
LLM dialogue, expressive speech and Unity animation.
Virtual reality / HCIVirtual humansAffective interactionUnity / C#AI integration
01 / Current research
Affective communication
through virtual humans.
Fourth-year PhD candidate
Technological University Dublin
April 2023 – present
My PhD focuses on virtual reality and human-computer interaction. I study how virtual humans convey emotion and support social interaction, and I build the systems needed to investigate those questions.
Understanding social interaction
Examining avatar fidelity, perceived expressiveness, usability and co-presence through literature synthesis and participant studies.
Personality-driven agents
Extending this work towards LLM-driven virtual humans, using OCEAN-based personality modelling to shape dialogue and non-verbal behaviour.
I develop Unity research prototypes, design and conduct experiments, collect questionnaire and behavioural data, and analyse and communicate the findings. Building and evaluating the experience are connected parts of my work.
Read my three publications02 / Selected projects
Research and development projects
Research prototypes, applied systems and earlier experiments in gameplay, animation and immersive environments.
9 projects
AI-driven virtual human
A live conversational character that speaks and responds with personality-driven gestures, expressions and gaze.
Making Faces
Real-time facial expression selection that works alongside speech lip sync, without dedicated face-tracking hardware.
RoboMate
A Unity XR environment for a UR10e model, with pose publication and inverse-kinematics integration.
Interactive shader
A mouse-driven shader experiment for drawing on meshes and changing the height of the painted surface.
NOAH: Dojo level
Movement, weapon interactions and three cutscenes brought together in a tutorial level.
Enemy AI
An enemy behaviour prototype with patrol, player detection, group alerts, pursuit and shooting.
Heart Viz
A cross-sectional heart visualisation with animated flow indicators and programmed camera movement.
Lonely Island
A short island animation using camera movement, perspective and ambient sound to create a sense of discovery.
VR Forest
An immersive forest with controller-based teleportation, environmental sound and comfort-focused iteration.
03 / About me
Research and development
in immersive technology.
I’m Sangeeth, a fourth-year PhD candidate at Technological University Dublin, based in Dublin, Ireland. My research focuses on expressive virtual humans, affective communication and social interaction in VR.
My background combines Computer Science Engineering at the University of Kerala with a Master’s in Digital Media from the National University of Ireland Galway (2020), where my thesis examined the effects of VR on human emotions. Before my PhD, I worked as an AR/VR developer at InApp Information Technologies.
Alongside doctoral research, I contributed to RoboMate as a research assistant at TU Dublin from July to September 2025. I have also supported students through tutoring, laboratory assistance and grading, and helped facilitate and document discussions with senior citizens for the Age of AI initiative.
I’m interested in combining technical development with human-centred evaluation. I want to understand how people use immersive systems and use those findings to improve the design.
04 / Get in touch
Let’s talk research
and development.
For research collaborations, development opportunities or a conversation about my work, you can reach me here.