Hi, I’m Echo, an artist and interaction designer currently pursuing an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction at Georgia Tech.
Fruit Ninja VR
Interactive VR game built on Unity and used for locomotion-based HCI research
Skills Used: Interaction design, Unity development (C#), VR systems integration (SteamVR/XR Rig), research methods, physics-based prototyping, 3D asset pipeline (Blender â Unity), teamwork
Outcomes: Delivered a fully playable VR game prototype used in lab experiments. The system demonstrated how using a realistic avatar and rotational manipulation impact both user perception and interaction accuracy, contributing insights relevant to VR game design, training simulations, and embodiment research.
Description: Designed and developed a VR game used in my research investigating virtual embodiment and motion perception in active gameplay. Literature on embodiment informed our interaction design. Building on existing work showing that avatar representation and interactivity influence embodiment, our team explored how the presence of a virtual body and manipulated rotational gain affect performance and perception in a fast-paced projectile game environment.
I helped translate embodiment theory into a playable game by developing interaction mechanics including physics-based fruit spawning, contact-triggered slicing, and real-time audiovisual feedback. The environment was designed to support spatial awareness and immersion, using visible spawn sources, environmental boundaries, and world-anchored UI to avoid breaking presence. Early playtesting revealed fruit trajectories were too difficult to predict, so I adjusted spawn timing and launch forces. Through iterative prototyping and running tests in VR, we refined object trajectories, mass, launch forces, and feedback systems to create a game that felt responsive and believable.
The project supported two lab studies:
- Embodiment study comparing full virtual body tracking vs. no visible body
- Rotational gain study examining how users react when physical turning doesn’t match virtual rotation
Performance data (accuracy, speed, precision, movement data) were collected alongside embodiment questionnaires to analyze how interaction design decisions influence both perception and task performance.
Picnic Scene
Unity-built scene featuring 3D models made in Blender
Description: This virtual environment is a serene picnic scene built using models I made in Blender and Unity assets. I focused on atmosphere, composition, and storytelling through the scene. A scripted light source rises and sets, mimicking the sun and brings a sense of time.
Skills Used: Unity development (C#), 3D asset integration, lighting and rendering, environment design
Outcomes: Produced a fully rendered interactive scene and advanced 3D models.
LynxLifts: UI design
Logo and page design for a student-founded app
Iterations of home page design
Description: I was consulted for designing the logo and UI for LynxLifts, a rideshare app created by a group of students for the Rhodes College campus. I was given a set of constraints such as the color scheme and overall tone, and drafted ideas for implementation. I collaborated with the app team to turn my prototypes into working interfaces.
Skills Used: Graphic design, communication, collaboration, branding
Outcomes: Provided a variety of prototyped UI options to the app development team, as well as a finalized app icon.
The Bridge Street Newspaper
Newspaper layout design
Description: Designed monthly newspaper layouts for The Bridge, a non-profit street paper founded by Rhodes College students to support the unhoused community in Memphis. As Chief Design Editor, I created engaging and clear layouts for a broad audience.
Skills Used: Editorial design, layout design, teamwork, copy editing, Adobe InDesign and Acrobat
Outcomes: Designed 7 published issues, learning accessibility and readability standards while working as lead designer on a ~15-person team.
Thesis Exhibition
Collection of multimedia artwork
Description: This multimedia show brought together painting, sculpture, textiles, digital art, and installation to explore themes of memory. Drawing from personal history, natural forms, and domestic materials, I made an immersive environment that viewers were intrigued to navigate through. By mirroring forms and using cohesive color palettes, I used my design thinking to make pieces that function together as a system, instead of stand-alone works
Skills Used: Spatial composition, material exploration, storytelling, installation design, curation
Outcomes: This work was given the “Best in Show” award, and shows my ability to design experiences around emotional perception and engagement. I mastered how to design for an audience, a skill I translate into user-centric design within HCI.
Click here to read my Artist’s Statement:
Time distorts memories, leaving behind traces that shape our understanding of the past. These traces emphasize the fragility of remembering, where what is held onto is always at risk of fading or being lost to time. I am inspired by memories from the farm where I grew up and the processes of nature that happened there. Occurrences like the quiet transformations of the land or the endless cycles of growth and decay mirror the fabric of our own lives. Using repurposed materials like worn textiles, I combine imagery of natural and domestic forms to ground these traces of memory into something tangible.
I am growing and revealing what I call a forest of memories. Fluid depictions, projections, and shifting surfaces blur the line between the real and the imagined. Bodies emerge, submerged in rippling surfaces that fade in and out of resolution. They bleed into fabric, unraveling, yet held together by the delicate tension of thread. Like a quilt assembled out of scraps, the act of cutting and reassembling characterizes the way we attempt to piece together what has been lost, to find its shape in the remnants. Here, absence and presence exist in tension, felt in the spaces that are left behind and the fragments that linger.
Time gives and takes. At its root, this work represents the subtleties of loss and grief, whether it be the loss of time or loved ones. It explores the distortion of memory shaped by the quiet, persistent pain that exists within the joy of having loved someone and then lost them.
I included process photos here to better show my creative process. It includes a lot of editing, iterating, and redesigning as the pieces form.
Detail shots: in the second image you can better see the rippling water video that is projected onto the fabric.