Dr. Nick Hedley is the founding director of the Spatial Interface Research Lab at SFU, and an Asst. Professor in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Nick has been researching geovisualization interfaces, virtual environments and mixed reality for 15 years. He works in the areas of 3D interface technology design, empirical human interface evaluation, and how humans engage information and each other through these technologies. His primary areas of R&D are geospatial tangible augmented reality (GeoSTAR), mobile geospatial augmented reality, and serious games applied to real geographic problems.
Nick has designed and developed visualization interfaces for radiological risk mitigation, collaborative spatial decision-making, 3D oceanographic model visualization, hydrogeology, avalanche and tsunami hazards. Nick’s R&D has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Canadian Water Network, and Geomatics for informed Decisions (GEOIDE).
In addition to academic research, Dr. Hedley has consulted for numerous organizations in broadcasting, public education and the movie industry. These include the BBC R&D (UK), BBC Creative R&D (UK), BHP (Australia), and ARToolworks. He was the designer/creator of the augmented reality exhibit seen in the popular museum exhibit Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination – a joint project between Lucasfilm and Boston Museum of Science which has toured North America and internationally since 2005.