{
  "basics": {
    "name": "Drew Edgar",
    "label": "AI and XR Researcher",
    "image": "pfp-small.webp",
    "email": "drewpedgar@gmail.com",
    "url": "https://drewedgar.com",
    "summary": "I'm a highly-accomplished early-career human-computer interaction (HCI) professional, who brings a perspective combining technical expertise and a deep commitment to user-centred design and societal impact. Through my background in HCI research, I have developed significant proficiency and knowledge in the fields of Extended Reality (XR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). My passion lies in leveraging rigorous research to inform policy and design decisions and contribute to the responsible evolution and use of technology. I am currently seeking opportunities to apply my skills in a research or development role, where I can continue to grow and make a meaningful impact on the world.",
    "location": {
      "countryCode": "UK"
    },
    "profiles": [
      {
        "network": "LinkedIn",
        "username": "Drew Edgar",
        "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-edgar/"
      },
      {
        "network": "Google Scholar",
        "username": "Drew Edgar",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=LjtyGmgAAAAJ"
      },
      {
        "network": "BlueSky",
        "username": "@drewedgar.com",
        "url": "https://bsky.app/profile/drewedgar.com"
      }
    ]
  },
  "work": [
    {
      "name": "University of Glasgow",
      "position": "HCI Research Assistant",
      "url": "https://www.gla.ac.uk",
      "startDate": "2025-06",
      "endDate": "2025-08",
      "period": "Summer&nbsp;2025",
      "summary": "Description…",
      "highlights": ["<span class='repeated'>Worked on the DAARC project.</span>", "Designed and created instructional materials for an undergraduate course on XR development."],
      "supervisors": [
        {
        "name": "Dr Thomas Goodge",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mzytrugAAAAJ"
        },
        {
        "name": "Dr Mark McGill",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N0NjK_AAAAAJ"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "University of Glasgow",
      "position": "Computer Science Lab Demonstrator",
      "url": "https://www.gla.ac.uk",
      "startDate": "2024",
      "endDate": "2025",
      "summary": "Description…",
      "highlights": ["Led lab sessions on the fundamentals of Human-Computer Interaction, emphasising student participation and discussion.",
    "Facilitated sessions on LLM development and design, utilising Pytorch to implement word embeddings, with the goal of enhancing students' understanding of machine learning concepts."]
    },
    {
      "name": "University of Glasgow",
      "position": "HCI Research Assistant",
      "url": "https://www.gla.ac.uk",
      "startDate": "2024-06",
      "endDate": "2024-08",
      "period": "Summer&nbsp;2024",
      "summary": "Description…",
      "highlights": ["<span class='repeated'>Worked on the XR notification and VR exit transitions projects.</span>"],
      "supervisors": [
        {
        "name": "Dr Joseph O'Hagan",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=74ue18MAAAAJ"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "education": [
    {
      "institution": "University of Glasgow",
      "url": "https://www.gla.ac.uk",
      "area": "Computer Science",
      "specialisation": "Human-Computer Interaction",
      "studyType": "Bachelor of Science",
      "startDate": "2021",
      "endDate": "2025",
      "award": "First Class Honours",
      "score": "4.0",
      "courses": [""]
    }
  ],
  "publications": [
    {
      "name": "Evaluating Dynamic Delivery of Audio+Visual Message Notifications for Spatial User Interfaces",
      "publisher": "IEEE VR 2025: IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces",
      "publisherNote": "A* Conference",
      "releaseDate": "2025-03-28",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/VR59515.2025.00052",
      "summary": "Description…",
      "authors": [
        "Hyunsung Cho",
        "Drew Edgar",
        "David Lindlbauer",
        "Joseph O’Hagan"
      ]
    },
      {
      "name": "Examining the use of Augmented Reality + Aritifical Intelligence for crime through Co-Design Workshops",
      "status": "In Preparation",
      "summary": "Description…",
      "authors": [
        "Thomas Goodge",
        "Drew Edgar"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Evaluating An Environmentally Aware Adaptive Music System for Pedestrians",
      "status": "In Preparation",
      "summary": "Description…",
      "authors": [
        "Drew Edgar",
        "Jake Bhattacharyya",
        "Mark McGill"
      ]
    }
  ],  
  "researchProjects": [
    {
      "name": "Examining the Criminal and Harmful Implications of Everyday Augmented Reality + Artifical Intelligence",
      "url": "",
      "description": "Description…",
      "highlights": [
        "As part of the <a href='https://www.rephrain.ac.uk/daarc/'>REPHRAIN DAARC</a> (Defence Against Augmented Reality Crimes) project.",
        "Contributed to a systematic literature review on criminal and harmful implications of AR.",
        "Conducted focus groups and interviews to gather insights on potential AR+AI crime scenarios.",
        "Developed a demo application (Unity + Meta Llama 3) to illustrate the potential for criminal misuse of everyday AR technology enabled by the capabilities of frontier multimodal LLMs."
      ],
      "supervisors": [
        {
        "name": "Dr Thomas Goodge",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mzytrugAAAAJ"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Designing and Evaluating An Environmentally Aware Adaptive Music System for Pedestrians",
      "url": "",
      "description": "Description…",
      "highlights": [
        "An independent dissertation research project where I designed and evaluated an Audio Augmented Reality (AAR) system for pedestrians that altered the instrumentation of music based on various environmental changes.",
        "Conducted a literature review, designed and implemented the user study procedure and companion app, and analysed the qualitative and quantitative data."
      ],
      "supervisors": [
        {
        "name": "Dr Mark McGill",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N0NjK_AAAAAJ"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Multimodal AI Safety Research & Evaluation",
      "description": "Description…",
      "highlights": [
        "Developed Python pipelines for preprocessing multimodal datasets, structued chat prompts, and performed data quality filtering.",
        "Conducted a systematic safety evaluation of Meta's Llama 3 model using industry-standard benchmarks and toolkits, with a focus on hallucination, harmful output, and human interaction risks. Applied mixed-effects and other statistical modelling techniques to assess model performance.",
        "Implemented interactive simulations in Python, captured model responses, computed safety metrics, and visualised the results with pandas/matplotlib, resulting in a comprehensive evaluation report summarising accuracy, safety vulnerabilities, and mitigation strategies for real-world applications.",
        "Facilitated discussions on responsible design and safety methods for AI systems, particularly in regards to user experience and potential harms."
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Examining Different Notification Methods in XR",
      "url": "https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10937443",
      "description": "Description…",
      "highlights": [
        "Collaborated with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University on a study exploring user attitudes towards different audio-visual notification styles in Extended Reality (XR).",
        "Developed study applications in Unity for Meta Quest 3, designed survey and interview protocols, recruited participants, and conducted the user study.",
        "The resulting paper was accepted at IEEE VR 2025."
      ],
      "supervisors": [
        {
        "name": "Dr Joseph O'Hagan",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=74ue18MAAAAJ"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Exploring Exit Transitions in VR",
      "description": "Description…",
      "highlights": [
        "Investigated the different ways a user could be transitioned out of a VR environment, and the effects of these transitions on user experience."
      ],
      "supervisors": [
        {
        "name": "Dr Joseph O'Hagan",
        "url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=74ue18MAAAAJ"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "skills": [
    {
      "name": "Research",
      "keywords": ["Science Communication", "Systematic Literature Reviews", "Qualitative Analysis Methods", "User Study Design and Implementation", "Workshops and Focus Groups", "Quantitative Methods", "Statistical and Probabilistic Modeling"]
    },
    {
      "name": "Artificial Intelligence (LLMs)",
      "keywords": ["Large Language Models", "Multimodal LLMs", "Fine-tuning", "AI Safety", "Pytorch", "Hugging Face Transformers", "Meta Llama Models", "Multimodal Benchmark Evaluation", "Dataset Preprocessing and Curation", "OpenCV", "Python (pandas, matplotlib, NumPy)"]
    },
    {
      "name": "XR Development",
      "keywords": ["Unity", "XR Design", "Meta Quest", "Meta SDK", "Meta Project Aria"]
    },
    {
      "name": "Web Development",
      "keywords": ["HTML", "CSS", "JavaScript", "React", "Static Sites", "Single Page Apps", "Figma Prototyping", "UI Design"]
    }
  ],
  "references": [
    {
      "name": "Mark McGill",
      "reference": "Reference…"
    },
    {
      "name": "Thomas Goodge",
      "reference": "Reference…"
    },
    {
      "name": "Joseph O'Hagan",
      "reference": "Reference…"
    }
  ]
}
