SánchezEsquivel
PhD researcher in Human–Computer Interaction at Aarhus University. I study how people work, think and play together inside mixed reality — with their hands, their gaze, and the spaces around them.
say hi :)
About the researcher.
I'm a PhD student at the Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, working with the Extended Interaction (XI) group. My research lives at the intersection of HCI, mixed reality and input — how we point, click, gaze and gesture when the interface is the room itself.
Right now I'm a Visiting Researcher at the University of Sydney, prototyping multimodal techniques where gaze and gestures collaborate. Before the PhD I did my MSc at Aarhus (BlendBoard), after a BSc at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and a year-long exchange at the University of Waterloo.
Selected research.
Blended Whiteboard
CHI · 2024Physicality and reconfigurability in remote mixed-reality collaboration.
★ Honorable Mention · CHI 2024
SpatialPad
ISMAR Workshop· 2025Air-taps for interaction in XR — a lightweight gesture vocabulary for spatial input.
Practice-informed Patterns
CHI · 2024Patterns for organising large groups in distributed mixed-reality collaboration.
FOR THE FULL ROLL — EVERY PUBLICATION, CITATION, CO-AUTHOR
FULL CATALOGUE ON GOOGLE SCHOLAR↗Awards & recognition.
- ★ 2024ACM CHI 2024
Honorable Mention Award
Blended Whiteboard — Physicality and reconfigurability in remote mixed-reality collaboration. Top ~5% of submissions.
ACADEMIC - ★ 2022Fundación Mutua Madrileña
Postgraduate Studies Scholarship
Scholarship for graduated students that made it possible to study my master's abroad.
NATIONAL GRANTMOBILITY - ★ 2019 & 2020Comunidad de Madrid
Academic Excellence Grant
Awarded twice (2019–2020 and 2020–2021) by the regional government for being among the best academic records of all university students in the region — top 2,000 out of ~200,000.
REGIONAL GRANT - ★ 2019Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Non-EU Mobility Scholarship
Scholarship from UC3M for being in the top 20 academic records applying for the non-European mobility programme (exchange at the University of Waterloo).
UNIVERSITY GRANTMOBILITY - ★ 2017IES Prado de Santo Domingo
Honors Diploma
Honors mention on my high school diploma, awarded to the top 3% of students (2015–2017).
HIGH SCHOOL
Education & career.
Places I've studied and worked — the institutions that developed the negatives.
- CAREER2026
The University of Sydney
Visiting ResearcherSix months with the HCI group, working on long-distance mixed-reality collaboration.
- EDUCATIONFeb 2024 — present
Aarhus University · Denmark
PhD Student · Computer ScienceExploring novel multimodal techniques in XR — interaction where gaze and gestures collaborate through new metaphors. Designing techniques, implementing prototypes, and running evaluation studies for both research and commercial applications.
- CAREEROct 2023 — Feb 2024
Aarhus University · Denmark
Research Assistant · Dept. of Computer ScienceResearch assistant under the supervision of Hans Gellersen and Ken Pfeuffer, working in HCI and XR.
- EDUCATIONSep 2021 — Jun 2023
Aarhus University · Denmark
MSc in Computer ScienceSpecialising in Advanced Machine Learning, Augmented Reality and Ubiquitous Cloud Computing. Thesis: BlendBoard — continuous reconfiguration of real-virtual surfaces to enhance remote collaboration.
- CAREERJun 2021 — Sep 2021
Amazon Web Services
Software Development Engineer Intern · NICE DCVWorked at AWS NICE DCV — one of AWS's cloud solutions used by millions of customers with a huge variety of needs. Learnt about the cloud at the highest levels and the QA procedures that go into massive development projects.
- EDUCATIONSep 2019 — Jun 2020
University of Waterloo · Canada
Exchange · BSc in Computer Science & EngineeringYear-long exchange. Ambassador for Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Coursework in Algorithms, User Interfaces, Compilers, Object-Oriented Software Development, Computer Networks, Computer Optimization.
- CAREERJun 2020 — Sep 2020
Making Science
Junior Software Engineer · BackendSummer internship on the backend team. Deployed the company's new internal advertisement-tracking tool using Python and Airflow, improving time efficiency up to 3×. Gained hands-on experience with Google Cloud, Google RCS and Azure VMs.
- EDUCATIONSep 2017 — Jul 2021
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid · Spain
BSc in Computer Science & EngineeringCoursework in Data Structures, AI, Cryptography & Computer Security, Discrete Math, Programming, Operating Systems. Thesis: Harassment-in-the-workplace prevention app for iOS, iPadOS and macOS.
Landed in Sydney for six months as a Visiting Researcher with the HCI group at USYD. New continent, same questions about how we collaborate inside mixed reality.
Presenting our latest work on multimodal gaze + gesture interaction. Trying to make pointing in XR feel a little less like waving at a screen.
Blended Whiteboard received an Honorable Mention at CHI 2024 — huge thanks to my co-authors and the Extended Interaction group at Aarhus.
Let's keep
in touch.
Open to collaborations, research visits, theses, talks and the occasional film-photography conversation. Mail works best.
