VGTC Virtual Reality Significant New Researcher Award.

The 2024 IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Significant New Researcher Award goes to Professor Ana Serrano of the Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain), in recognition of her outstanding contributions to virtual reality, computational imaging, and perception of material appearance. Her work has greatly impacted the community’s understanding of attention and viewer behavior in virtual reality. In addition to investigating saliency in virtual reality, Dr. Serrano has introduced a generative model of realistic scanpaths for 360° images that represent how users explore a virtual environment. Her other contributions include movie editing in virtual reality and its effects on the perception of continuity, perception-based material modeling such as gloss management, and understanding the effects of shape and illumination on the perception of material appearance. Her work has produced many high-profile publications and received numerous accolades within and beyond the field of virtual reality.