Mykola Maslych

Mykola is a PhD Candidate in Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. His main research is in synthetic generation of human motion and real-time processing of human input. Approaches includes transformer-based generative AI and machine learning techniques for data processing (Transformers, Diffusion models, RNNs and others), data augmentation, and the design of virtual environments for interactions. Mykola received his Master's of Computer Science from UCF in 2023, and Bachelor's of Computer Science from UCF in 2021. After joining the ICE lab as an undergraduate student in Fall 2018, he was involved in multiple projects, including researching gesture segmentation and classification approaches, developing an ecologically valid data collection protocol for 2D Gestures, and running participant studies.

Publications

Gottsacker, M., Hmaiti, Y., Maslych, M., Furuya, H., DeGuzman, JJ., Bruder, G., Welch, G., and LaViola, J. "From One World to Another: Interfaces for Efficiently Transitioning Between Virtual Environments", Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26), Article 1690, 17 pages, April 2026.
Gottsacker, M., Hmaiti, Y., Maslych, M., Bruder, G., LaViola, J., and Welch, G. "XR-First Design for Productivity: A Conceptual Framework for Enabling Efficient Task Switching in XR", 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct), 6 pages, October 2025.
Gottsacker, M., Hmaiti, Y., Maslych, M., Furuya, H., Bruder, G., Welch, G., and LaViola, J. "From Alt-Tab to World-Snap: Exploring Different Metaphors for Swift and Seamless VR World Switching", 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct), 2 pages, October 2025.
Maslych, M., Katebi, M., Lee, C., Hmaiti, Y., Ghasemaghaei, A., Pumarada, C., Palmer, J., Segarra Martinez, E., Emporio, M., Snipes, W., McMahan, R., and LaViola, J. "Mitigating Response Delays in Free-Form Conversations with LLM-powered Intelligent Virtual Agents", Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI '25), Article 49, 15 pages, July 2025.
Hmaiti, Y., Maslych, M., Ghasemaghaei, A., Ghamandi, R., and LaViola, J. "Visual Perceptual Confidence: Exploring Discrepancies Between Self-reported and Actual Distance Perception In Virtual Reality", IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 30(11):7245-7254, November 2024.
Maslych, M., Yu, D., Ghasemaghaei, A., Hmaiti, Y., Segarra Martinez, E., Simon, D., Taranta, E., Bergstrom, J., and LaViola, J. "From Research to Practice: Survey and Taxonomy of Object Selection in Consumer VR Applications", Proceedings of the 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, 990-999, October 2024.
Ghasemaghaei, A., Maslych, M., Hmaiti, Y., Segarra Martinez, E., and LaViola, J. "Towards Better Throwing: A Comparison of Performance and Preferences Across Point of Release Mechanics in Virtual Reality", Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2024, 11 pages, June 2024.
Ghamandi, R., Kattoju, RK., Hmaiti, Y., Maslych, M., Taranta, E., McMahan, R., and LaViola, J. "Unlocking Understanding: An Investigation of Multimodal Communication in Virtual Reality Collaboration", Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24), Article 602, 16 pages, May 2024.
Ghasemaghaei, A., Hmaiti, Y., Maslych, M., Segarra Martinez, E., and LaViola, J. "Throwing in Virtual Reality: Performance and Preferences Across Input Device Configurations", 2024 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops, 897-898, March 2024.
Hmaiti, Y., Maslych, M., Taranta, E., and LaViola, J. "An Exploration of The Effects of Head-Centric Rest Frames On Egocentric Distance Judgments in VR", Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, 263-272, October 2023.
Maslych, M., Taranta, E., Aldilati, M., and LaViola, J. "Effective 2D Stroke-based Gesture Augmentation for RNNs", Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23), Article 282, 13 pages, April 2023.
Maslych, M., Hmaiti, Y., Ghamandi, R., Leber, P., Kattoju, RK., Belga, J., and LaViola, J. "Toward Intuitive Acquisition of Occluded VR Objects Through an Interactive Disocclusion Mini-map", Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR '23), 460-470, March 2023.
Taranta, E., Maslych, M., Ghamandi, R., and LaViola, J. "The Voight-Kampff Machine for Automatic Custom Gesture Rejection Threshold Selection", Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22), Article 556, 15 pages, May 2022.
Taranta, E., Pittman, C., Maghoumi, M., Maslych, M., Moolenaar, Y., and LaViola, J. "Machete: Easy, Efficient, and Precise Continuous Custom Gesture Segmentation", ACM Transactions of Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 28(1): Article 5 (46 pages), January 2021.
Taranta, E., Pittman, C., Oakley, J., Maslych, M., Maghoumi, M., and LaViola, J. "Moving Toward an Ecologically Valid Data Collection Protocol for 2D Gestures In Video Games", Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20), Paper 290 (11 pages), April 2020.