People of ACM European Chapters - Irene Viola

January 20, 2026

A recent focus of your work has been Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics and methodologies for immersive multimedia systems. Why are new metrics needed and what are the challenges in developing them?

The topic of QoE for traditional media formats (images or videos) is well-explored, and many metrics have been defined and standardized to assess them. However, when it comes to immersive media systems, there are many factors that still need to be explored. Immersive media can be irregular and offers more degrees of freedom to the user. The challenge lies in incorporating such degrees of freedom when we perform our evaluation, both in user studies and through algorithmic solutions. Moreover, as immersive media surrounds the user, there are many psychophysiological factors that come into play: How do we account for cybersickness? How does the sense of immersion influence the experience? This makes for a complex topic, but also one that is very fun to explore.

You’ve recently done research on how AI-generated subtitles can enhance the experience of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) theatre. Will you tell us a little about this work?

In this work, we wanted to explore how we can use AI-generated subtitles to enhance the accessibility of theatre plays. Imagine you are on vacation in Greece and would like to attend a theatre play: the language barrier would make it hard for you to fully engage with the story, especially if it is in Ancient Greek. That’s where AR technology can come to play. We first developed a prototype in VR to test the subtitle positions in a controlled environment, and then we validated our prototype in AR, in front of a real actor playing an excerpt of the drama Hippolytus by Euripides.

In AR, we were also able to add special effects, which can really enhance the performance. The audience reacted favorably to the AR and pointed out how greatly it can help in aid accessibility. The work was a collaboration with Athens Epidaurus Festival, Maggioli Spa, and University of Maastricht for the Horizon Europe project VOXReality. This project aims at enabling voice-driven interactions in extended reality (XR) spaces for different use cases.

What is an emerging research area in your field that will have significant impact 5-10 years from now?

While research in VR and XR has existed for a while, there are still many unexplored aspects related to it. For me, the most interesting to think about is to identify and quantify the factors that influence and shape our experience in XR, like the sense of immersion. Even rudimentary technology can make us feel totally immersed—reading a good book and forgetting the real world is a good example. On the other hand, you can have amazing, high-fidelity content and still feel like there is something amiss that prevents you from feeling like you are there. Another interesting aspect is user participation and intervention. How does agency shape user experience? And how do we empower users to have more agency in XR? There are many factors that shape how effective XR experiences can be, and I think the efforts in understanding them will have a great impact in how the field evolves.

The ACM SIGMM Europe Chapter was just recently started. What was the impetus for starting this chapter? What are some of your planned activities?

The idea behind the ACM SIGMM Europe Chapter was to serve as a contact point for people in European institutions working on multimedia. The field is big and varied, with academic institutions as well as industry players interested in different aspects of it. The point is to have a forum for discussion, to find collaborators, foster new talent, and promote European research on the topic. One important aspect for us is to promote European-wide events and initiatives, such as meetings, thematic schools, discussion groups, and workshops.

Along those lines , we are supporting two seasonal schools in 2026: the Winter School on Social Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Multimedia taking place in Autrans, France, and the Spring School on Social XR taking place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The schools are a great learning and networking opportunity for students and speakers alike, and well represent our mission to foster new talent. We are also organizing a workshop for the chapter in 2026, to be co-located in one of the SIGMM-sponsored conferences. Stay tuned!

Irene Viola is a Senior (tenured) multimedia researcher at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands.  Her research interests include compression, transmission, and quality evaluation.

Viola serves as Vice Chair of the ACM SIGMM Europe Chapter. The chapter’s kickoff meeting was held in October during the ACM SIGMM Multimedia Conference in Dublin.