Research & Scholarship
Areas of Focus
Immersive and Interactive Storytelling
How do stories change when you’re inside them? Our faculty explore narrative design across virtual reality, augmented reality, interactive theater, and location-based experiences. Their work expands traditional storytelling frameworks into immersive formats that engage users emotionally, spatially, and experientially.
Human-Computer Interaction & UX Design
We investigate how people engage with digital experiences and how to make those experiences intuitive, ethical, and impactful. Research in this area focuses on interface design, user testing, embodied interaction, and the psychology of play, all with a focus on improving how humans and machines relate to each other.
Artificial Intelligence & Procedural Design
ETC researchers are experimenting with AI not just as a tool, but as a creative collaborator. From procedural content generation to prompt engineering to AI-inclusive production pipelines, we’re exploring how artificial intelligence can help designers build smarter systems, more dynamic narratives, and deeply responsive experiences.
Inclusive Design & Accessibility
How can we ensure the future of entertainment is one that everyone can access? Our work in inclusive design centers on building tools, experiences, and frameworks that serve diverse users, especially those historically excluded from mainstream design. Far from an afterthought, accessibility is an integral part of our process from the start.
Transformational Games
Play isn’t just fun, it’s fundamental. Our research explores how transformational games and interactive experiences can deepen learning, spark curiosity, and enhance memory. We have close relationships with K-12 schools, local districts, educational nonprofits, and informal learning environments like afterschool programs,, and work with them on projects and initiatives that focus on making learning more playful, personal, and effective.
Featured Faculty & Projects
Faculty Lead: Director of the ETC & Associate Professor of Design Derek Ham
How do we design robots that don’t just function — but play? ETC Director Derek Ham is connecting ETC’s experimental ethos with Carnegie Mellon’s global leadership in robotics with a new cross-campus research initiative exploring robots as creative, social, and educational companions. Through a summer 2025 collaboration with CMU’s Robotics Institute, Road to Robotics focuses on building playful behaviors in machines, such as storytelling, music-making, adaptive learning and physical interaction. The research team, including faculty from both ETC and Robotics, will develop a Unity Game Engine plugin for the Unitree G1 humanoid robot, opening up new possibilities for interaction design in immersive environments.
Faculty Leads: Director of the ETC & Associate Professor of Design Derek Ham; Head of Outreach, Extension, and Engagement John Balash
What happens when hands-on brick building meets holographic display technology? Brick Portals is an early-stage research initiative led by Derek Ham and John Balash that explores how LEGO®-based play can expand across physical and digital boundaries, empowering new forms of creativity, collaboration, and emotional development. Building on CMU’s Project Baseplate and the globally recognized Brick-by-Brick® program, this project combines Looking Glass® holographic displays with a custom-built Unity application that lets users create and interact with LEGO® structures in both real and virtual environments. Brick Portals is part of ETC’s broader mission to design playful technologies that are meaningful, inclusive, and scalable for classrooms and communities alike. Playtesting is underway, with future phases set to explore dynamic interactions between digital construction and real-world collaboration, laying the groundwork for a whole new kind of hybrid play.
Faculty Lead: Assistant Teaching Professor Charles Johnson
Led by ETC faculty member Charles Johnson in collaboration with Honda’s 99P Labs, Third Space Mobility Experience explores how extended reality (XR) technologies can transform the way we engage with personal vehicles, not just as a means of transportation, but as immersive, multifunctional environments. As part of the ETC’s Mobility Experience Lab, this project reimagines the personal car as a “third space:” a flexible zone between home and work where passengers and drivers can relax, create, connect, or recharge. Research includes worldbuilding through motion tracking, field of view optimization, surface detection, lighting environments, and user experience design, turning technical design challenges into human-centered storytelling opportunities.
Collaborations & Campus Connections
Our faculty are plugged into the broader Carnegie Mellon ecosystem. Explore the CMU centers, schools and colleges we collaborate with on a frequent basis.
Let’s Collaborate
Curious about collaborating with our faculty or learning more about their work?