hi!

I’m a technical multimodal VR and ML researcher with a focus on social interactions in virtual environments. Currenlty, I’m based at the HCAI lab led by Prof. Elisabeth Andre, researching group engagement in VR classrooms with a focus on non-verbal cues, particularly eye tracking. I completed my PhD at Goldsmiths UoL, (part of IGGI CDT) exploring the nonverbal behaviour of virtual humans in 6DoF VR, supervised by Sylvia Pan and Marco Gillies.

Selected Publications

• Gonzalez Diaz, C., Dobre, G.C., André E., Conati, C. 2026. Gaze for Dyads & Blinks for Triads: Task Engagement Predictors in Free-Flow VR Interactions. IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and eXtended and Virtual Reality (AIxVR), *shared first authorship (pdf)

• Dobre, G.C., Wilczkowiak, M., Gillies, M., Pan, X., Rintel, S., 2025. Avatars in Mixed-Reality meetings: A Longitudinal Field Study of Realistic versus Cartoon Facial Likeness Effects on Communication, Task Satisfaction Presence, and Emotional Perception. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (pdf)

• Dobre, G. C., Gillies, M., Pan, X. 2022. Immersive Machine Learning for Social Attitude Detection in Virtual Reality Narrative Games. Virtual Reality Journal (pdf)

• Dobre, G. C., Wilczkowiak, M., Gillies, M., Pan, X., Rintel, S. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pdf)

Check out my Google Scholar profile for a complete list of publications.