Denis Kikinov

Hello, I am a recent PhD graduate looking to foray into the workforce and use the skills I’ve developed throughout the past few years.

For the past six years, I have been involved in multiple research projects utilizing XR technologies for neuroanatomical visualization and neurosurgical training, alongside my thesis study. This lead me to develop projects for visualization of brain anatomy, for intramuscular injection training, and for neurosurgical trajectory training. I’ve also simplified some of my projects and used them to demonstrate the strength of AR in education as part of volunteer work done with local elementary and high school students, such as displaying the parts of the brain; both with a healthy and brain tumour model.

My thesis “Evaluating User Performance in Augmented and Virtual Reality for Neurosurgical Targeting Tasks” focused on comparing user training experiences across several AR/VR platforms. I designed and developed near-identical projects, based on a custom module for the NeuroTouch simulator, which I deployed on Android, Microsoft HoloLens 2, HTC Vive and Meta Quest 2 systems. Then I ran a study to determine whether a single device or modality had an edge over another, and how they fared against the NeuroTouch.

Each of my projects began with a project idea for which I had to evalute feasability, and if viable, develop a proof of concept. The first step I always took was to check if there were new frameworks, hardware or updates to existing frameworks that could be leveraged better for the specified task. This has led me to develop projects using OpenXR, SteamVR, OculusVR, MRTK and Vuforia while testing out other mobile AR/VR frameworks (such as Lightship ARDK) to evaluate their potential. As the XR field has been rapidly progressing in recent years, I’ve had to learn and adapt alongside to make sure that the user experience was as comfortable as possible for each potential user or trainee.

Now I’m looking for any opportunity to take my technical experience obtained through my research and apply it within the industry. I hope this website can give you a good idea of my expertise and the work I’ve done.

Thank you for taking your time to look at my work!