Kennesaw State Business Student Transforms Virtual Reality Research Landscape

At a Glance

Fareedah Ashiru evolved from tech novice to conducting advanced VR research in exercise science within one year.
Her research pairs VR headsets with lightweight dumbbells to manipulate perceived weight during workouts.
As a freshman, she presented findings at KSU Spring Symposium, impressing professors with graduate-level work.
The business student bridges technical and business knowledge gaps in Dr. Jung’s Immersive Empathic Interface Lab.
Her research may revolutionize home workouts by making them safer through virtual weight perception manipulation.

From complete tech novice to virtual reality pioneer, Kennesaw State University sophomore Fareedah Ashiru is redefining what’s possible in undergraduate research. Just last year, she couldn’t tell a VR headset from a toaster, but now she’s running experiments that might revolutionize how we all work out at home. Talk about a glow-up!

As an Information Systems major, Ashiru joined the First-Year Scholars Program without a lick of technical experience. She landed in Dr. Sungchul Jung’s Immersive Empathic Interface Lab, where the virtual reality magic happens. “I thought I’d be making coffee, not changing how people perceive dumbbells!” she might joke if you asked her about those early days.

The research is pretty mind-bending stuff. Ashiru and the team are using VR headsets paired with lightweight dumbbells to trick the brain into feeling different weights. This innovative approach aims to reduce muscle harm from improper exercise equipment use. Imagine thinking you’re lifting 50 pounds when it’s actually just 10 – your muscles might thank you later! They’re collecting tons of data on how people respond to these virtual weight variations, hoping to make at-home workouts safer and more effective.

Using VR to trick your brain into feeling heavier weights? That’s not just working out—that’s working smarter.

What makes Ashiru’s journey remarkable is how she’s bridged the business-tech divide. While most of her business classmates were crunching numbers, she was crunching data on human subjects research, learning complex research protocols that even graduate students struggle with.

Her hard work paid off when she presented her findings at the KSU Spring Symposium as a freshman – a rare accomplishment that had professors doing double-takes. “A freshman? Publishing research?” you could almost hear them whisper.

Now in her sophomore year, Ashiru continues pushing boundaries in the lab. She’s gone from someone who couldn’t code her way out of a paper bag to a researcher helping establish VR’s role in perception studies. Her research builds on evidence that cognitive benefits include reduced stress and anxiety during workouts.

Dr. Jung’s mentorship provided the perfect environment for this transformation, proving that sometimes all a student needs is someone who believes they can do the impossible. Her work aligns with research showing that different VR immersion levels can significantly improve learning outcomes across various student populations.