Mohan Zalake
Research Assistant Professor, Biomedical and Health Information Sciences
Focus Areas
Office Phone
Office
1919 W. Taylor St., 206 AHSB
Mail Code
530
Office Hours
By appointment
About
Dr. Mohan Zalake's research is in the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Virtual Reality (VR), and healthcare technologies. He directs the V-ARE Lab (Virtual healthcARe Experiences Laboratory) at UIC where he conducts research on the design and development of virtual experiences that enable effective communication of health information. The virtual experiences developed from his research have been used by more than 4000+ users in real-world settings across different health behavior change contexts, such as improving mental health among college students, supporting suicidal patients, and increasing awareness of colon cancer screening among the elderly population. He frequently collaborates with interdisciplinary teams of domain experts in health, education, communication science, and social psychology. His work has been recognized with the Best Paper Award by the Intelligent Virtual Agents conference in 2019 and an Innovation of the Year from the University of Florida in 2021.
Selected Grants
Chronic Condition Equity Network (C3EN), AI-PROMOTORA (AI - Providing Resources and Outreach to Middle-aged Older adults Through Online and Realistic Agents), Principal Investigator
UIC Applied Health Science College, EQUITY (Enhancing QUality of Instruction using TechnologY), Principal Investigator
Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, National Institute on Aging, B-DONATE (Brain - Donation among Older miNority Adults using virTual Experiences), Principal Investigator
Selected Publications
Publication Aggregators
Service to the Community
He serves on the program committee of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces. He is a frequent reviewer for several journals and conferences - ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, IEEEVR, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, BioMed Central Medical Education, ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems
Leadership in the Profession
IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, Program Committee member
Notable Honors
2021 - Innovation of the year, University of Florida Innovate and Tech Licensing
2019 - Best Paper Award, ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
Education
Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing (University of Florida, 2022).
Masters in Digital Arts and Sciences (University of Florida, 2017),
Bachelors in Electronics and Communication (PES University, 2015),