Interview with Dr. Olivia Zechner—Winner of the Multimodal Technologies and Interaction Best Paper Award

Name: Dr. Olivia Zechner
Affiliation: Head of Group Innovation & Value Creation, Salzburg Research

We wish to congratulate Dr. Olivia Zechner on winning the Multimodal Technologies and Interaction Best Paper Award. We had the pleasure of inviting her for this interview, in which we learned more about her background, views, and interests.

The following is a brief interview with Dr. Olivia Zechner:

1. Congratulations on winning the Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 2023 Best Paper Award! Could you please briefly introduce yourself?

My name is Dr. Olivia Zechner, and I am a Human–Computer Interaction researcher working at the intersection of immersive technologies, human factors, and AI-driven behavioral adaptation.
Over the past decade, I have contributed to several European research projects in safety-critical domains including police and medical first responders focusing on how XR, biosensing, and data-driven systems can support human performance under stress. My research aims to build adaptive virtual environments that respond to human state, enabling safer, more effective, and evidence-based training and decision making. I also work on technology adoption and innovation strategy to ensure these systems provide real-world value across industries.

2. Could you give a brief overview of the main content of your award-winning paper?

The paper summarizes three years of interdisciplinary research from the Horizon 2020 project SHOTPROS, investigating how Virtual Reality can enhance police training for high-stress, high-risk operational situations.
We collected requirements from European law enforcement agencies, conducted human-factor studies, and performed large-scale field trials with more than 300 police officers.
The paper provides:

• Technical and didactical guidelines for designing VR training systems;
• Insights into stress induction and measurement in VR, including HR/HRV-based stress dashboards;
• Recommendations for scenario design, realism, NPC behavior, and multisensory cues;
• Evidence that VR can safely replicate complex, dangerous, and emotionally challenging situations that are impossible to train in real life.

3. Can you introduce your current research focus and the main research areas of your team?

I currently lead the Innovation & Value Creation research group at Salzburg Research, where we explore how digital technologies can meaningfully enhance human performance, organizational capability, and societal value. Our work spans several interconnected areas:
Behavior Change and Human-Centered Design: We study how digital interventions can support sustainable, safe, and health-promoting behaviors. This includes applying behavioral science, nudging, and motivational design in real-world deployments.
Human Augmentation for Enhanced Performance: Building on my background in XR and physiological computing, we investigate how immersive technologies, biosensing, and adaptive systems can augment human capabilities, particularly in high-stress or high-performance contexts.
Technology Acceptance and Innovation Management: We help organizations understand how users perceive, trust, and adopt emerging technologies such as AI and XR. Our work includes acceptance modeling, readiness assessments, and strategic guidance for responsible, human-centered innovation.
Across all these areas, our aim is to combine rigorous research with practical impact, ensuring that technological progress translates into real value for people, organizations, and regions.

4. Could you describe some challenges and breakthroughs in your research field?

Key challenges:

• Bridging realism and safety: Simulating high-risk scenarios authentically without overwhelming or harming trainees;
• Accurate full-body tracking and locomotion: Ensuring natural movement and team interaction in multi-user VR;
• Responsive virtual agents: Current AI-driven NPC behavior still struggles with natural communication and emotion;
• Ethical use and data protection: XR training collects sensitive physiological and behavioral data. This must be handled transparently and responsibly.

Notable breakthroughs:

• Demonstrating that stress in VR can be induced in controlled, ecologically valid ways using contextual cues;
• Developing a real-time stress dashboard using HRV and HR to adapt training difficulty;
• Creating didactical guidelines that align technical VR capabilities with how police actually learn, making VR not just a technology but a pedagogically meaningful training method;

VR training is now transitioning from novelty to evidence-based practice, and our work has been instrumental in shaping that shift.

5. What factors attracted you to submit your paper to Multimodal Technologies and Interaction? How was your submission experience?

MTI has a strong reputation in multimodal interaction, immersive technologies, and human-centered computing, the perfect home for interdisciplinary XR research. The journal’s focus on methodological rigor and real-world applicability aligns closely with our project’s goals.
The submission and review process was extremely professional, constructive, and efficient. We received thoughtful feedback that improved the clarity and impact of the final paper.

6. In your opinion, which research topics will attract widespread attention in the academic community in the coming years?

I believe several topics will be central to the next wave of HCI and XR research:

• Adaptive and personalized virtual environments driven by AI and biosignals;
• State-aware computing, including stress, cognitive load, and emotional awareness;
• Ethical and trustworthy AI in safety-critical contexts;
• Multisensory XR (haptics, scent, heat, pain cues) to increase realism and embodiment;
• Digital twins for behavior modeling and simulation;
• Human-AI teaming, especially in public safety, healthcare, and mobility;

The intersection of immersive tech + physiological signals + AI will fundamentally reshape training, decision making, and human–machine collaboration.

7. What advice would you give to young researchers who aspire to produce high-impact research results?

High-impact research is rarely created in isolation; it emerges at the intersections of disciplines, perspectives, and methods. Some of the most exciting breakthroughs happen when we stay truly interdisciplinary and allow ideas from different fields to collide. Equally important is working closely with real users and stakeholders. Research should solve real problems, not exist only in theory, and ensuring that results are transferable and applicable to real-world contexts is essential if we want our work to create meaningful impact.
Prototyping early and iterating quickly is a powerful way to bridge this gap between theory and practice. Even imperfect prototypes reveal insights that no paper alone can deliver. At the same time, maintaining strong methodological quality and transparent, reproducible, and rigorously evaluated research builds credibility and ensures that our solutions can scale beyond a single project.

8. As the recipient of this award, could you share your feelings and whom you would like to thank?

I feel incredibly honored and grateful. This award recognizes not only my work but also the effort of an amazing interdisciplinary consortium across Europe.
I want to thank our police partners who trusted us and contributed their time and expertise; the SHOTPROS research and industry partners; my co-authors and mentors who shaped this work; and the European Commission for supporting high-risk, high-innovation research.

9. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction is an open access journal. How do you think open access impacts readers and authors?

Open access is crucial for fields like ours, where research must ultimately translate into practice. It removes barriers for trainers, police practitioners, and policymakers, allowing them to access evidence directly and apply it to real-world challenges. By making results immediately available, open access accelerates the dissemination and uptake of findings, strengthens interdisciplinary collaboration, and increases the visibility and impact of authors’ work. Most importantly, it ensures that publicly funded research creates the widest possible public benefit, an essential principle when developing technologies that influence safety, ethics, and society at large.