





Today, we’re excited to announce the award recipients of the Microsoft HoloLens Academic Research Grant Program. Earlier this year, we challenged academic institutions to submit their ideas to harness the potential of Microsoft HoloLens and push the boundaries of possible applications for holographic computing.

The submissions exceeded our expectations, not only in volume, but in the diversity of institutions and the quality of the proposals. We were blown away to observe such creative, compelling and promising academic applications for HoloLens across art, medicine, visualization, education and more. From leveraging HoloLens to correct for visual impairment to mobilizing mixed reality in the classroom for trade-based education, the submissions truly capture the spirit of the program and point to the scope of what’s possible with Microsoft HoloLens.

Congratulations to the five winning institutions, all of whom will receive $100,000 and two Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition devices with which to conduct their research. However, settling on just five award recipients was a nearly impossible task owing to the sheer quality of submissions. Therefore, we’ve decided to also provide five runners up with two Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition devices each so that they may continue their outstanding work.

Microsoft HoloLens Academic Research Grant Award Recipients

Award Recipients

Golan Levin, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO, Carnegie Mellon University: Open-Source Investigations in Mixed Reality

Emily Cooper, Wojciech Jarosz and Xing-Dong Yang, Dartmouth College: Augmenting Reality for the Visually Impaired with Microsoft HoloLens

Joseph Gabbard and Doug Bowman, Virginia Tech: Collaborative Analysis of Large-scale Mixed Reality Data

Andy Mingo, Tawny Schlieski, Nikki Dunsire, Shelley Midthun, J Bills, Clackamas Community College & Intel, HoloLens Curriculum for Trade-based Education

Allen Yang, Professor Claire Tomlin, and Shankar Sastry, University of California, Berkeley: Immersive Semi-Autonomous Aerial Command System (ISAACS)

Runners up

Lori C. Walters, Eileen Smith, Fran Blumberg, Robert Michlowitz, Alexia Mandeville, University of Central Florida: Memory Lens: A Dynamic Tool for Capturing Societal Memory

Wen Liu, The University of Kansas: Stroke Rehabilitation

Preeti Gupta, American Museum of Natural History: DinoLens: Seeing an Unseen Past

Pamela Jennings, Center for Design Innovation: CONSTRUKTS: Augmenting design processes with interactive holograms using the Microsoft HoloLens

Carol LaFayette and Frederic I. Parke, Texas A&M University: Extending the range of human senses: Ultraviolet and ultrasonic perception with Microsoft HoloLens

It’s so exciting to see the academic community respond to Microsoft HoloLens with such enthusiasm, and we suspect this is only the beginning.

We cannot wait to follow along as our award recipients and others continue this journey and pave the road ahead for the new frontier of holographic computing. And we encourage developers to apply for the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition. We are looking for creative developers to help us build an active, dynamic community. Come build the holographic future with us.