Dr. Muhammad Zahid Iqbal works as a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Immersive Technologies at Teesside University. He also works as associate faculty at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He completed PhD in Computer Science with a specialization in Immersive Technologies from University College Dublin, Ireland, with the thesis titled "Investigating Real-time Touchless Hand Interaction and Machine Learning Agents in Immersive Learning Environments". During his PhD, he worked as a graduate assistant for teaching Augmented & Virtual Reality and Mobile Computing labs at University College Dublin, Ireland. He also worked as Associate Faculty at the National College of Ireland.  

His future research vision is to explore the convergence of immersive technology, digital twins, metaverse, and digital transformations. These emerging technologies can offer unprecedented opportunities and challenges for various sectors and domains, such as education, health care, entertainment, tourism, and manufacturing. One of his main research goals is to develop novel methods and frameworks for creating, managing, and interacting with digital twins of real-world objects and environments using immersive technology such as AR, VR, and MR. He is interested in how digital twins can enable seamless and immersive experiences across physical and virtual spaces and how they can support data-driven decision-making and innovation.

Another research direction he is pursuing is to investigate the metaverse's potential as a new immersive technology paradigm.  He is curious about how metaverse can foster new forms of learning, collaboration, entertainment, and expression and what are the ethical, social, and technical implications of this technology. To achieve these research objectives, he seeks motivated and talented PhD students interested in immersive technology, digital twins, metaverse, and digital transformations. He is willing to offer a supportive and stimulating research environment, access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations and industry partnerships. If you are interested in joining him as PhD student, please get in touch with your CV and research proposal.

• Reviewer of ACM SIGCHI Gary Marsden Travel Awards
• Member of Organizing Committee iLRN2023 
• Member of ACM Metaverse Chapter Committees

            -HCI Committee and Metaverse & Society

His research interests are Human-Computer Interaction, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Virtual Reality, Digital Interaction Techniques, Digital Twins, Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence and Educational Technology. 

Immersive Technologies (Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality)

• Real-time Hand Interaction and Machine Learning Agents in Immersive Learning Environments

• Metaverse and Emerging opportunities in the Immersive Technologies

• Touchless/Contactless Interaction Technologies

• Ethics, Privacy and security issues with Extended Reality