Sandra Malpica Mallo, Assistant Professor

Universidad de Zaragoza, I3A

Hi! I am currently an Assistant Professor at the Centro Universitario de la Defensa (Zaragoza, Spain). Previously I was a postdoc researcher at Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) working with Prof. Nuria Pelechano and Prof Oscar Argudo. I obtained my Ph.D. in Feb. 2023 working under the supervision of Prof. Belen Masia and Prof. Diego Gutierrez at the Graphics and Imaging Lab. I obtained my Bachelor degree at Universidad de Zaragoza, majoring in Computer Engineering (with a Computer Science mention) in 2017. Later, I obtained my Master degree at the same university, majoring in Biomedical Engineering in 2018. During 2019 and 2020 I spent some months as an intern with Adobe Research and Facebook Reality Labs respectively.

I am really interested in the particularities of how people perceive their surroundings, and leveraging this knowledge to address current challenges in the computer graphics field, either software- or hardware-caused. I specialize in virtual reality and in designing, executing, and analyzing user studies to systematically investigate complex aspects of human behavior and sensory processing, particularly in audiovisual contexts.

Short CV (Last updated on 09/2023)
Sideral (public) CV (Last updated on 12/2024)

Publications

2024

Minimally Disruptive Auditory Cues: Their Impact on Visual Performance in Virtual Reality

Daniel Jiménez Navarro, Ana Serrano, Sandra Malpica

The Visual Computer Journal

PDF Bibtex Project page

Journal (JCR Q2)

Symposium - Reproducing reality: What is needed to build displays that pass the "visual Turing test"? (Talk - Immersive reality: effects and uses of VR in perception)

Simon Watt, Maliha Ashraf, Sandra Malpica, Paul Hibbard, Phillip Guan

European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP 2024, Aberdeen (Scotland))

Slides Program

Conference

Design-Driven Approaches for Enhanced Antibiogram Utilization: Integrating User-Centered Design Methodologies with Clinical Expertise

Ángela Abejez, Rosana Sanz, Sandra Malpica, Eduardo Manchado, Jose Ramón Paño

12º JCM 2024 INTERNATIONAL MEETING - 33º INGEGRAF

PDF Slides Program

Conference

Análisis de los procesos comunicativos del servicio de enfermedades infecciosas del hospital clínico de Zaragoza

Ángela Abejez, Rosana Sanz, Galadriel Pellejero, María Ferrer, Santiago Letona, Eduardo José Manchado, Sandra Malpica, Elena Morte

XXII Jornadas de Trabajo sobre Calidad en Salud y XX Congreso de la Sociedad Aragonesa de Calidad Asistencial

Slides

Conference

2023

Task-dependent Visual Behavior in Immersive Environments: A Comparative Study of Free Exploration, Memory and Visual Search

Sandra Malpica, Daniel Martin, Ana Serrano, Diego Gutierrez, Belen Masia

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (ISMAR 2023)

PDF Bibtex Project page

Journal (JCR Q1)

D-SAV360: A Dataset of Gaze Scanpaths on 360º Ambisonic Videos

Edurne Bernal-Berdun, Daniel Martin, Sandra Malpica, Pedro J. Perez, Diego Gutierrez, Belen Masia, Ana Serrano

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (ISMAR 2023)

PDF Bibtex Project page

Journal (JCR Q1)

Tutorial: effective user studies in computer graphics

Sandra Malpica, Qi Sun, Petr Kellnhofer, Alejandro Beacco, Gizem Senel, Rachel McDonnell, Mauricio Flores Vargas

Eurographics 2023

Abstract Slides

Conference

Visual and multimodal perception in immersive environments

Sandra Malpica (supervised by Diego Gutierrez and Belen Masia)

PhD Thesis

PDF

International mention, Cum laude

2022

Larger visual changes compress time: The inverted effect of asemantic visual features on interval time perception

Sandra Malpica, Belen Masia, Laura Herman, Gordon Wetzstein, David Eagleman, Diego Gutierrez, Zoya Bylinskii, Qi Sun

PLOS One (17) 2022

PDF Bibtex Data

Journal (JCR Q1)

2021

Multimodality in VR: A survey

Multimodality in VR: A survey
Daniel Martin*, Sandra Malpica*, Diego Gutierrez, Belen Masia, Ana Serrano
ACM Computing Surveys, 2022

PDF Bibtex Journal page

Journal (JCR Q1)

2020

Auditory Stimuli Degrade Visual Performance in Virtual Reality

Sandra Malpica*, Ana Serrano, Diego Gutierrez, Belen Masia
Scientific Reports, 10, 2020

PDF Bibtex Project Page

Journal (JCR Q1)

Crossmodal perception in virtual reality

Sandra Malpica*, Ana Serrano*, Marcos Allue, Miguel Bedia, Belen Masia
Multimedia Tools and Applications, 79(5), 2020

PDF Bibtex

Journal (JCR Q2)

Has half the time passed? Investigating time perception at long time scales

Sandra Malpica*, Belen Masia, Laura Herman, Gordon Wetzstein, David Eagleman, Diego Gutierrez, Zoya Bylinskii, Qi Sun
Journal of vision, 20(11), 2020 - VSS abstracts

Conference

2019

A Similarity Measure for Material Appearance

Manuel Lagunas, Sandra Malpica, Ana Serrano, Elena Garces, Diego Gutierrez, Belen Masia
ACM Transactions on Graphics, Vol. 38(4) (SIGGRAPH 2019)

PDF Bibtex Project page

Journal (JCR Q1)

2017

Improved intuitive appearance editing based on soft PCA

Sandra Malpica, Miguel Barrio, Diego Gutierrez, Ana Serrano
CEIG 2017

PDF Bibtex

Conference

Work Experience

Research

Assistant Professor, Centro Universitario de la Defensa (CUD)

September 2024 - Present

Graphics and Imaging Lab group.
Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería de Aragón (I3A).
Grupo CUD Tecnologías críticas para la robótica móvil.
Profesora ayudante doctora

Assistant Professor, Universidad de Zaragoza

September 2023 - August 2024

Graphics and Imaging Lab group.
Profesora interina

Postdoc Researcher, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya

May 2023 - September 2023

ViRVIG group, SENDA Project.

Ph.D. student, Universidad de Zaragoza

December 2018 - February 2023

4 year competitive predoctoral grant. Awarded by Aragon's government

Research internship

Facebook Reality Labs

September 2020 - December 2020

Internship carried out within the Mixed Reality Team, under the supervision of Alex Locher

Research internship

Adobe Research

April 2019 - June 2019

Internship carried out within the Graphics, Imaging and Learning Lab, under the supervision of Qi Sun and Zoya Bylinskii

Previous works

Graphics and Imaging Lab

December 2016 - July 2018

Research assistant and junior researcher (N4)

Abaco Digital

June 2015 - September 2015

Curricular internship

Teaching

Bachelor level

Informatics - Electronics engineering degree (Universidad de Zaragoza), Industrial Technologies engineering degree (Universidad de Zaragoza), Telecomunication Techologies and Services (Universidad de Zaragoza) and Security and Defense degree (Centro Universitario de la Defensa de Zaragoza)

2019/2020, 2022/2023, 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 academic years

Computer Graphics - Computer engineering degree (Universidad de Zaragoza)

2023/2024 academic year

Programming technologies - Computer engineering degree (Universidad de Zaragoza)

2023/2024 academic year

Image editing and composition - Product development and design engineering degree (Universidad de Zaragoza)

2020/2021 and 2021/2022 academic years

Master level

Virtual Reality - Master in robotics, graphics and computer vision (Universidad de Zaragoza)

2020/2021 and 2021/2022 academic years

Research Seminars - Master in robotics, graphics and computer vision (Universidad de Zaragoza)

2023/2024 academic year

Simultaneous localization and mapping - Master in robotics, graphics and computer vision (Universidad de Zaragoza)

2023/2024 academic year

Supervision

Current students

PhD: design engineering in biomedical and clinical contexts (title TBD) - Ángela Abejez

January 2024 - Present

PhD: DL and real time 3D rendering (title TBD) - Thomas Komair

October 2023 - Present

BsC thesis: Authoring tool for points of interest in natural terrains (title TBD) - Jesús Mendoza

December 2023 - Present

Former students

BsC thesis: Proposal for the integration of UGV/UAV assets in platoon-level engineer intelligence and reconnaissance missions (9.8/10) - Felipe Cebrián

October 2024 - February 2025

MsC thesis: Investigating auditory-triggered suppressive effects in virtual reality (9.0/10) - Daniel Jiménez (master student)

January 2022 - July 2022

Development of a tool for data recording and visualization while exploring content in virtual reality (9.0/10)- Pedro José Pérez (undergrad student)

2020/2021 academic year

BSc thesis: Implementation and analysis of 2D scanpath prediction models (7.5/10)- Miguel Gómez (undergrad student)

2020/2021 academic year

MsC internship: Unity pipeline for perceptual experiments - Daniel Jiménez (master student)

2020/2021 academic year

Reviewing and conferences

Reviewing experience

2024

Frontiers in Neurology, Frontiers in Neuroscience, Virtual Reality, Computers & Graphics (CAG), The Visual Computer, ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST), IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), EuroXR 2024, Scientific Reports, IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies

2022

SIGGRAPH, ISMAR, CEIG

2021

VRST, ISMAR, VIRE, IEEEVR

2020

EUROVR, VIRE

2019

GRAPP, SAP, VRST

Conference organization

2024

     International program committee member for IEEE AIxVR 2025
     International program committee member for Pacific Graphics 2024
     Organizing Committee member at the International Summer School on Extended Reality Technology and Experience
     Program commitee member for CEIG

2023

     Organizing Committee member at the International Summer School on Extended Reality Technology and Experience
     International Program Committee member for Pacific Graphics
     Program commitee member for CEIG

2022

Posters chair for ACM SAP
Program comitee member for CEIG

2021

International program comitee member for VRST