Hi!
I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. I am affiliated with the Center for Avatar Research and Immersive Social Media Applications (CARISMA) Lab. Previously, I received my B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at UPenn, with a concentration in Marketing. I worked as a data analyst at a marketing research company for four years before deciding to pursue academic research.
My research is at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), emerging media, and social influence. My primary research area focuses on how AI-driven agents can build relationships with people and influence their judgment, decision-making, and behavior using immersive virtual reality as a simulation tool (e.g., Lim et al., 2024). I was nominated for Google PhD Fellowship for this work.
My second research area involves designing emerging technology-based interventions for specific communities and topics. For example, I recently completed a year long project about designing immersive virtual reality (VR) and social robot well-being support tools for an immigrant community. This work was funded by the Strosacker Research Grant. Other examples include using generative AI to develop informative and persuasive health messages (Lim & Schmälzle, 2023; Lim & Schmälzle, 2024).
Lastly, I use immersive VR, combined with physiological and behavioral measures, to study human behavior in simulated contexts. (e.g., Lim et al., 2024).
See more detailed description of my projects here. Abstracts and links to my publications are here.