- Devereaux, Sam; Lam, Ashley; Upadhyay, Anuja; Fallows, Megan; Qiu, Lianqi; Pan, Xueni and Cheema, Umber. 2025. Protocol for biomimetic tumoroid models by plastic compression using centrifugation. STAR Protocols, 6(2), 103718. ISSN 2666-1667
- Zhang, Ju; Ma, Fang; Pi, Yuke; Du, Haoyang and Pan, Xueni. 2025. Digital twin embodied interactions design: Synchronized and aligned physical sensation in location-based social VR. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 6, 1499845. ISSN 2673-4192
- ThompSon, Nicalia; Pan, Xueni and Herrojo Ruiz, Maria. 2025. Setting the Stage: Using Virtual Reality to Assess the Effects of Music Performance Anxiety in Pianists. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 31(5), 2504 -2514. ISSN 1077-2626
- Pi, Yuke; Pan, Xueni; Slater, Mel and 艢widrak, Justyna. 2025. Embodied time travel in VR: from witnessing climate change to action for prevention. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 5, 1499835. ISSN 2673-4192
- Yin, Jiaqi; Liu, Shihan; Lee, Shao-Wen; Kitsios, Andreas; Gillies, Marco; Birtel, Mich猫le Denise; Farmer, Harry and Pan, Xueni. 2025. Immersive Intergroup Contact: Using Virtual Reality to Enhance Empathy and Reduce Stigma Towards Schizophrenia. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 31(11), pp. 9656-9666. ISSN 1077-2626
- Rovira, Aitor; Lambe, Sinead; Beckwith, Helen; Ahmed, Memoona; Hudson, Felicity; Haynes, Phoebe; Yu, Chun-Jou; Williams, Kira; Saidel, Simone; Iredale, Ellen; McBride, Sapphira; Waite, Felicity; Pan, Xueni and Freeman, Daniel. 2024. A randomized controlled experiment testing the use of virtual reality to trigger cigarette craving in people who smoke. Scientific Reports, 14, 19445. ISSN 2045-2322
- Dobre, Georgiana Cristina; Gillies, Marco and Pan, Xueni. 2022. Immersive Machine Learning for Social Attitude Detection in Virtual Reality Narrative Games. Virtual Reality, 26(4), pp. 1519-1538. ISSN 1359-4338
- Gibbs, Janet K.; Gillies, Marco and Pan, Xueni. 2022. A Comparison of the Effects of Haptic and Visual Feedback on Presence in Virtual Reality. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 157, 102717. ISSN 1071-5819
- Zibrek, Katja; Pan, Xueni and Orel, Marko. 2021. Meeting Remotely-The Challenges of Optimal Avatar Interaction in VR. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2, 773258. ISSN 2673-4192
- Collingwoode-Williams, Tara; O'Shea, Zoe; Gillies, Marco and Pan, Xueni. 2021. The Impact of Self-Representation and Consistency in Collaborative Virtual Environments. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2, 648601. ISSN 2673-4192
- Farmer, H.; Hewstone, M.; Spiegler, O.; Morse, H.; Saifullah, A.; Pan, Xueni; Fell, B.; Charlesford, J. and Terbeck, S.. 2020. Positive intergroup contact modulates fusiform gyrus activity to black and white faces. Scientific Reports, 10, 2700. ISSN 2045-2322
- Drewett, Olivia; Hann, Gayle; Gillies, Marco; Sher, Carmel; Delacroix, Sylvie; Pan, Xueni; Collingwoode-Williams, Tara and Fertleman, Caroline. 2019. A Discussion of the Use of Virtual Reality for Training Healthcare Practitioners to Recognize Child Protection Issues. Frontiers in Public Health, 7(255),
- Pan, Xueni and Hamilton, Antonia F de C. 2018. Why and how to use virtual reality to study human social interaction: The challenges of exploring a new research landscape. British Journal of Psychology, 109(3), pp. 395-417. ISSN 0007-1269
- Pan, Xueni; Collingwoode-Williams, Tara; Antley, Angus; Brenton, Harry; Congdon, Benjamin; Drewett, Olivia; Gillies, Marco; Swapp, David; Pleasence, Pascoe; Fertleman, Caroline and Delacroix, Sylvie. 2018. A study of professional awareness using immersive virtual reality: the responses of general practitioners to child safeguarding concerns. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 5, 80.
- Pan, Xueni and Hamilton, Antonia F de C. 2018. Understanding dual realities and more in VR. British Journal of Psychology, 109(3), pp. 437-441. ISSN 0007-1269
- Fertleman, Caroline; Aubugeau-Williams, Phoebe; Sher, Carmel; Lim, Ai-Nee; Lumley, Sophie; Delacroix, Sylvie and Pan, Xueni. 2018. A Discussion of Virtual Reality As a New Tool for Training Healthcare Professionals. Frontiers in Public Health, 6,
- Forbes, Paul Alexander George; Pan, Xueni and Hamilton, Antonia F de C. 2016. Reduced Mimicry to Virtual Reality Avatars in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(12), pp. 3788-3797. ISSN 0162-3257
- Kyriakou, Marios; Pan, Xueni and Chrysanthou, Yiorgos. 2016. Interaction with virtual crowd in Immersive and semi鈥怚mmersive Virtual Reality systems. Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 28(5), e1729. ISSN 1546-4261
- Pan, Xueni; Slater, Mel; Beacco, Alejandro; Navarro, Xavi; Bellido Rivas, Anna I; Swapp, David; Hale, Joanna; Forbes, Paul Alexander George; Denvir, Catrina; Hamilton, Antonia F. de C. and Delacroix, Sylvie. 2016. The Responses of Medical General Practitioners to Unreasonable Patient Demand for Antibiotics-A 牛牛资源 of Medical Ethics Using Immersive Virtual Reality. PLoS ONE, 11(2), e0146837. ISSN 1932-6203
- Pan, Xueni and Hamilton, Antonia F. de C.. 2015. Automatic imitation in a rich social context with virtual characters. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 790. ISSN 1664-1078
- Pan, Xueni; Gillies, Marco and Slater, Mel. 2015. Virtual character personality influences participant attitudes and behavior 鈥� an interview with a virtual human character about her social anxiety. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2, 1. ISSN 2296-9144
- Friedman, Doron; Pizarro, Rodrigo; Or-Berkers, Keren; Neyret, Sol猫ne; Pan, Xueni and Slater, Mel. 2014. A method for generating an illusion of backwards time travel using immersive virtual reality鈥攁n exploratory study. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 943. ISSN 1664-1078
- Cook, Jennifer; Swapp, David; Pan, Xueni; Bianchi-Berthouze, Nadia and Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne. 2014. Atypical interference effect of action observation in autism spectrum conditions. Psychological Medicine, 44(4), pp. 731-740. ISSN 0033-2917
- Pan, Xueni; Gillies, Marco; Barker, Chris; Clark, David M. and Slater, Mel. 2012. Socially Anxious and Confident Men Interact with a Forward Virtual Woman: An Experimental 牛牛资源. PLoS ONE, 7(4), e32931.
- Gillies, Marco; Pan, Xueni and Slater, Mel. 2010. Piavca: a framework for heterogeneous interactions with virtual characters. Virtual Reality, 14(4), pp. 221-228. ISSN 1359-4338
- Gillies, Marco; Pan, Xueni; Slater, Mel and Shawe-Taylor, John. 2008. Responsive Listening Behavior. Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 19(5), pp. 579-589. ISSN 1546-4261
Professor Sylvia Xueni Pan
Sylvia has extensive experience working in VR researching Virtual Reality technology and social neuroscience.
Staff details
Xueni Pan is a Professor of Virtual Reality. Working in VR for almost 20 years she developed a unique interdisciplinary research profile with journal and conference publications in both VR technology and social neuroscience. Her work in training and education in VR has been featured multiple times in the media, including BBC Horizon and the New Scientist magazine. More info can be found on .
Academic qualifications
- 2009 PhD in Virtual Reality, Computer Science Department, UCL
- 2005 MSc in Vision, Imaging, and Virtual Environments, Computer Science Department, UCL
- 2004 BEng in Computer Science, Beihang University, Beijing, China
Teaching
Before joining 牛牛资源 in 2015, she worked as a research associate in Computer Science, UCL from 2009-2013, and in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN), UCL from 2013-2015, where she remains an honorary research fellow.
Modules she taught/is current teaching at 牛牛资源 include:
- 3D Virtual Environments and Animation (previously Advanced Graphics and Animation)
- Data Visualisation
- Audio-Visual Computing
- Perception and Multimedia Computing
Areas of supervision
The use of Immersive Virtual Reality in: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Interaction, Training, Education, and Psychotherapy.
VR technology: Character Animation (facial expression, motion capture), Photogrammetry built Virtual Environment.
Professional activities
Xueni Pan has participated in the following projects
Picking up ethical challenges within the humdrum of professional practice: can 3D avatars help? Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, HENCEL (Health Education North and Central London), and the Wellcome Trust. In Collaboration with UCL Laws and UCL Computer Science. More info can be found on the .
INTERACT: ERC funded project looking at how we subconsciously copy each other, using Virtual Reality. The project was based at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN), UCL. More info can be found on
Moral Judgement and Virtual Reality: funded by the Leverhulme Trust to investigate how we make moral judgements - and more importantly whether our moral judgements are aligned with our moral action, in Virtual Reality. The project was based at the Department of Computer Science, UCL. More info can be found on
Featured work
- Xueni Pan, Mel Slater, Alejandro Beacco, Xavi Navarro, Anna I. Bellido Rivas, David Swapp, Joanna Hale, Paul A. Forbes, Catrina Denvir, Antonia Hamilton, Sylvie Delacroix. . PloS one 11, no. 2 (2016): e0146837. .
- Xueni Pan, & Antonia Hamilton (2015): . Frontiers in Psychology. 6, 790 .
- Xueni Pan, Marco Gillies, & Mel Slater (2015). . Frontiers in Robotics and AI 2. .
- Pan, X., Gillies, M., Barker, C., Clark, D. M., & Slater, M. (2012). . PloS one, 7(4), e32931.
- Pan, X., & Slater, M. (2011, July). . In Proceedings of the 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 46-51). British Computer Society.
Publications and research outputs
Book Section
- Gillies, Marco; Ballin, Daniel; Pan, Xueni and Dodgson, Neil. 2008. Semi-Autonomous Avatars: A New Direction for Expressive User Embodiment. In: Lola Ca帽amero and Ruth Aylett, eds. Animating Expressive Characters for Social Interaction. John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 235-255. ISBN 9789027252104
Article
- Dobre, Georgiana Cristina; Wilczkowiak, Marta; Gillies, Marco; Pan, Xueni and Rintel, Sean. 2025. Avatars in mixed-reality meetings: A longitudinal field study of realistic versus cartoon facial likeness effects on communication, task satisfaction, presence, and emotional perception. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 205, 103632. ISSN 1071-5819
- Slater, Mel; Di Dalmazi, Michele; Friedman, Doron; Galissaire, Jessica; Isaac, Henri; Kobusinska, Anna; Lopez-Tarruella-Martinez, Aurelio; Luciao, Lamberti; Lucas, Jean-Fran莽ois; Aziz Niamut, Omar; Pan, Xueni; Prie, Yannick; Quent, Matthias; Ruiz Rodriguez, Raul; Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.; Skrzypczy艅ski, Piotr; Steed, Anthony and Wannerberg, Petter. 2025. A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Technology, Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for Society of the Metaverse. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 6, 1566419. ISSN 2673-4192
- Cork, Alicia G; Richardson, Mike; Lukosch, Heide K; Khamis, Mohamed; Katins, Christopher; Krauss, Veronika; Ruffin, Lauren; Papazoglakis, Sarah; Sanchez, Victoria; Pan, Xueni; Proulx, Michael J and Stanton Fraser, Dana毛. 2025. Shaping the future: principles for policy recommendations for responsible innovation in virtual worlds. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 6, 1645330. ISSN 2673-4192
Conference or Workshop Item
- Cheng, Zimu; Pan, Xueni and Gillies, Marco. 2025. 'Reducing Foreign Language Anxiety in Icebreaker Sessions Using LLM-Controlled Multilingual Virtual Agents in VR'. In: IVA '25: ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents. Berlin, Germany 16 - 19 September 2025.
- Zhang, Tianyuan; Lin, Wei; Zhang, Dingye; Pan, Xueni; Latham, William; Grayson, Katie; Watson, Zillah and Gillies, Marco. 2025. 'Sensing Nature'. In: ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2025. Madeira, Portugal 5 - 9 July 2025.
- Ma, Fang; Zhang, Ju; Tankelevitch, Lev; Panda, Payod; Asadi, Torang; Hewitt, Charlie; Petikam, Lohit; Clemoes, James; Gillies, Marco; Pan, Xueni; Rintel, Sean and Wilczkowiak, Marta. 2025. 'Nods of Agreement: Webcam-Driven Avatars Improve Meeting Outcomes and Avatar Satisfaction Over Audio-Driven or Static Avatars in All-Avatar Work Videoconferencing'. In: The 27th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW). San Jos茅, Costa Rica 9 - 13 November 2024.
Research Interests
- Virtual Reality
- Social Neuroscience
