Dr. Salam Daher (as of 8/8/19)
Contact
Email: salam@knights.ucf.edu
Email 2: salam.daher@njit.edu
Website: www.salamdaher.com
Appointments
Former Postdoctoral Scholar (2019)
Modeling and Simulation
Education
University of Central Florida, Orlando FL, PhD, Modeling and Simulation, 2018
University of Central Florida, Orlando FL, MS, Modeling and Simulation, 2015
University of Florida, Gainesville FL, MS, Digital Arts and Sciences (Engineering), 2006
Lebanese American University, BS, Computer Science with a Minor in Mathematics, 2004
About
Dr. Salam Daher is a postdoctoral researcher at the Synthetic Reality Lab focusing on the use of augmented reality (AR) in healthcare simulation. She uses AR to combine virtual content with the real world, for example she developed a new class of augmented reality patient simulators called Physical-Virtual Patients (PVP). The PVP allows healthcare educators to interact with a simulated patient by providing real-time physical tactile cues (e.g. temperature, pulse), auditory cues (e.g. speech, heart sounds), and rich dynamic visual cues such as facial expressions (e.g. pain, emotions) and changes in appearance (e.g. skin color, wounds). She also specializes in creating 3D synthetic environments (e.g. virtual campus tour), and modeling 3D human characters with animated facial expressions, speech, and body language for the purposes of simulation and training. Daher has been awarded scholarships from the National Center for Women and Technology, the Link Foundation and the Inter-service/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference, and UCF’s Modeling and Simulation scholarship for 3 consecutive years. Her work has been published in journals such as IEEE Virtual Reality, Intelligent Virtual Agent and Simulation in Healthcare. Earlier in her career, she worked as a multimedia software developer at Vcom3D where she led projects focusing on simulation and training for education, healthcare and military applications, including a multi-lingual cultural translator used by the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Research Interests
Healthcare simulation, modeling and simulation, training, virtual and augmented reality, synthetic environments, computer graphics, 3D characters, facial expressions (FACS), body language .
Prizes and Awards
Nominated by the UCF’s School of Modeling and Simulation for the Outstanding Dissertation Award, and Selected by the College of Graduate Studies (2019)
Nominated by the UCF’s School of Modeling and Simulation for the Order of Pegasus Award (2018)
National Center for Women and Technology National Award Winner (2018)
RADM Fred Lewis (I/ITSEC) Scholarship (2017)
Link Fellowship (2016)
UCF Modeling and Simulation Scholarship (2013,2014,2015)
