Jan
Kolkmeier
2024

Front End

I currently work as a senior frontend engineer on edge computing platforms in the food processing industry.

Thesis

My thesis topic was on novel social interaction experiences in mixed reality.

The research explored different forms of mediated social interactions using mixed reality technology, and how they could play out in different contexts. These include (simulated) face-to-face interactions with (virtual) humans, social conflict situations, as well as remote collaboration tasks with other humans

Research at Meta

I've worked as research intern at Meta Reality Labs on social perception and interaction in VR.

My first internship in 2018 was on motion reconstruction and gesture perception. My second one in 2020 was on multimodal interaction between VR and video conference. See our publication on that research.

unitymixed realityresearchmocap

DNA-Poli

The eCG Family clinic is a ZonMw funded research consortium. We're developing a digital health platform for genetic counseling, the DNA-poli.

My work on this project is on a conversational virtual assistant, and the integration with the platform from the Utrecht hospital.

angularchatbottypescriptresearch

Photography

I like to take pictures so I always have fresh wallpapers for my desktop.

Researcher
Designer
Engineer

I am a creative technologist with a PhD in human computer interaction.

User Interfaces, Mixed reality experiences, physical robots with digital minds, from 3D design to manufacturing — I enjoy connecting digital and physical to make products for humans.

Get in touch:

Research

Until 2024, I've been working as a postdoc on two projects as a research engineer, developing a virtual assistant for genetic counseling and developing social behaviors for a social robot in a hospital context.

Harmony

The Harmony project is a H2020 EU project on assistive mobile robotics in a hospital setting.

My work on this project is to design and implementing social behaviours for the robot. For testing and evaluation, I've developed a virtual version of the robot that can be experienced in VR.

unityrospythonmixed realityresearch

OpenIMPRESS

OpenIMPRESS is a telepresence platform developed together with Emiel Harmsen. It provides clients to connect various displays and sensors into a virtual shared environments.

Check our publication and our GitHub.

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MAKE

I enjoy every aspect of designing and making products. From 3D modeling and animation with Blender, CAD and CAM with Fusion360, to PCB design with KiCAD, to programming in game engines, firmware for microcontrollers, for the web or for data analysis.

One of my favorite projects where I applied most of these these skills in one was designing, manufacturing and marketing my own Mechanical Keyboard.

Mechanical Keyboards

I enjoy designing & using my own mechanical keyboards. From PCB to CNC-milled cases. I have also manufactured and distributed one one of my designs, the BMEK. It features an ergonomic layout and an aluminium case available in different colors.

product designpcbembeddedcadcommunity

Publications

2016

Interacting with virtual agents in shared space: Single and joint effects of gaze and proxemics
Kolkmeier, Jan, Jered, Vroon, Dirk, Heylen. Intelligent Virtual Agents: 16th International Conference, IVA 2016, Los Angeles, CA, USA, September 20–23, 2016, Proceedings 16. 2016.

2017

An asap realizer-unity3d bridge for virtual and mixed reality applications
Kolkmeier, Jan, Merijn, Bruijnes, Dennis, Reidsma, Dirk, Heylen. Intelligent Virtual Agents: 17th International Conference, IVA 2017, Stockholm, Sweden, August 27-30, 2017
Moral conflicts in VR: addressing grade disputes with a virtual trainer
Kolkmeier, Jan, Minha, Lee, Dirk, Heylen. Intelligent Virtual Agents: 17th International Conference, IVA 2017, Stockholm, Sweden, August 27-30, 2017
Things that Make Robots Go HMMM: Heterogeneous Multilevel Multimodal Mixing [...]
Davison, Daniel, Binnur, Gorer, Jan, Kolkmeier, Jeroen, Linssen, and others. Proceedings of the 12th Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces (eNTERFACE'16). 2016.
A demonstration of the ASAP Realizer-Unity3D bridge for virtual and mixed reality applications
Kolkmeier, Jan, Merijn, Bruijnes, Dennis, Reidsma. Intelligent Virtual Agents: 17th International Conference, IVA 2017, Stockholm, Sweden, August 27-30, 2017, Proceedings 17. 2017.

2018

[...] The openimpress mixed reality telepresence toolkit for remote collaboration systems
Kolkmeier, Jan, Emiel, Harmsen, Sander, Giesselink, Dennis, Reidsma, Mariet, Theune, Dirk, Heylen. Proceedings of the 24th ACM Symposium on VR Software and Technology. 2018.

2021

Who makes your heart beat? What makes you sweat? Social conflict in virtual reality for educators
Lee, Minha, Jan, Kolkmeier, Dirk, Heylen, Wijnand, IJsselsteijn. Frontiers in psychology 12. (2021): 628246.
Videoconference and embodied VR: Communication patterns across task and medium
Abdullah, Ahsan, Jan, Kolkmeier, Vivian, Lo, Michael, Neff. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5. CSCW2(2021): 1–29.

2022

The multimodal EchoBorg: not as smart as it looks
Falcone, Sara, Jan, Kolkmeier, Merijn, Bruijnes, Dirk, Heylen. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces 16. 3(2022): 293–302.
From Head Transform to Mind Transplant: Social Interactions in Mixed Reality
Kolkmeier, Jan. Dissertation. University of Twente, 2022.

2023

Development of an Alcohol Refusal Training in Immersive Virtual Reality [...]
Langener, Simon, Jan, Kolkmeier, Joanne, VanDerNagel, Randy, Klaassen, Jeannette, Manen, Dirk, Heylen, others. JMIR Formative Research 7. 1(2023): e42523.