Michael Bonfert

After studying Media and Communication B.A. with a focus on social sciences in Augsburg, I came to the University of Bremen in 2015 for the English master's program Digital Media M.Sc. in cooperation with the University of the Arts Bremen. This joint program combines the two diverse areas of computer science and media design by connecting international teams in interdisciplinary projects. Here, I had the chance to pursue my passion for designing the interaction between humans and computers. I explored the novel opportunities and challenges that virtual environments present with immersive 3D space. To this day, I am intrigued by creating accessible ways for users to experience these worlds and act freely in it without the impression of "operating a system."

Therefore, I joined the Digital Media Lab in 2018 for pursuing my PhD about multimodal realism for virtual reality. My focus is on haptic feedback, object manipulation and multimodal interaction following a user-centered approach. As member of the graduate college Empowering Digital Media, I hold a scholarship by the Klaus Tschira Foundation.

Please, find my full CV with all details about my internships, the student project CampusApp Uni Augsburg that I initiated, my volunteer work as coordinator of the Mensa Kids & Juniors Camps, as well as awards on LinkedIn.

If you are interested in a supervision of your Bachelor or Master thesis, send me a mail. 
For the following areas I can make topic suggestions and support you:

• Human-computer interaction for virtual reality and XR
• Haptics: forces, touch, pressure, temperature, weight, wind, texture, etc.
• Realism of haptic feedback: assessing the haptic fidelity of simulations
• Object Manipulation and the simulation of physical properties

Further research areas:

• Experiment methods for VR research
• Voice Interfaces for Digital Assistants

• Best Poster Award at ACM VRST'17 for Augmented Invaders
• Bronze Nail at the ADC Junior Awards 2017 for Hell No Barbie
• Highest grade of 1.0 for my master's degree in Digital Media M.Sc.
• University Prize for Interdisciplinary Cooperation 2017 by the University of the Arts and University of Bremen
• Special Award for Student Commitment by the University of Augsburg for the CampusApp