I design and study interactive systems that make heritage and cultural knowledge accessible — from serious games and VR simulations to low-resource, web-based AR for museums.
Who is visiting? I will point you to the good stuff.
Architect by training, informatics researcher by now.
I am a Ph.D. student in Informatics at the School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, advised by Prof. Laura Shackelford. My field of specialization is data analytics and information visualization.
My path runs from architectural engineering (Azad University), through landscape architecture (Istanbul Technical University) and historic preservation (Texas Tech University). Along the way I co-founded two startups and built a research practice around serious games, XR, and data-driven approaches to heritage.
At Illinois I work as Associate Producer & XR Lead at the Game Studies and Design stu/dio, and as a researcher with the VRchaeology lab. I also founded the IMMERSE Graduate Student Council.
A research journey along the old Silk Road. Pick a station to travel there.
Choose a station above to see what happened there.
B.Sc. in Architectural Engineering at Azad University. The final project, ARTechi, was an augmented reality platform for architecture. It grew into a startup that I co-founded and led as R&D team leader. It won 2nd prize at Tabriz Startup Weekend (2018) and 1st prize at the ACCELERATION startup weekend in Urmia (2019).
M.Sc. in Landscape Architecture at Istanbul Technical University. My thesis studied virtual landscapes across more than 1,400 games. Here I built the Digital Caravanserai game series (The Sericum Via, Anatolian Journey, Khan Game), won best-presentation prizes at ASCAAD and eCAADe 2021, and co-founded OyuNest with a TÜBİTAK 1512 grant.
M.Sc. in Architecture (Historic Preservation) at Texas Tech, fully funded. My thesis mined Steam player reviews to build a framework for historical video games. I made Echoes of Union Depot and the FabriCity XR experience shown at the 2023 Venice Biennale, interned at JHP in Dallas, and received APT and NCPE scholar awards.
Ph.D. in Informatics at the University of Illinois. I am Associate Producer & XR Lead at the Game Studies and Design stu/dio, work with the VRchaeology lab, founded the IMMERSE Graduate Student Council, and hold an Ethos of Care Fellowship. Current builds: Bitong WebAR and Beneath the Stone.
Research prototypes, games and exhibitions.
A web-based 3D/AR viewer for an artifact in the Spurlock Museum, built on Three.js/WebGL and opened by QR code with no app install. It is designed so that small museums can reproduce the whole pipeline without paid tools. MVP complete.
A low-resource, text-based game for the ethical digital representation of marginalized heritage sites. Developed under Prof. Shackelford; accepted at SIGraDi 2026.
NSF-funded VR simulation platform for archaeology education. I drive UX evaluation, playtesting and production, and co-created the gamified field-season course app (GSD 282) with quests, a points planner and a semester map.
Digital heritage project led by Prof. Güzden Varinlioğlu with MIT's Design Computation Lab, funded by the U.S. Department of State. Photogrammetry, 360° imagery and VR experiences of Anatolian caravanserais.
A web-based gamified AR experience for the FabriCity pavilion on socio-environmental justice, exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale (ECC) for Texas Tech University. PI: Prof. Mostafavi.
Serious games on the Silk Roads: The Sericum Via (best presentation, ASCAAD 2021), Anatolian Journey (Ivan Petrovic Prize, eCAADe 2021) and Khan Game (CAADRIA 2022), plus SU and Online Footprint.
A web platform giving game designers, developers and artists a shared design language for virtual environments, based on landscape-architecture methodology (patented in South Korea). Funded by a $25,000 TÜBİTAK 1512 grant.
At JHP Architecture (Dallas): an interactive architectural visualization in Unreal Engine 5.2 with an AI-driven NPC, plus a proof of concept for moving projects from ARCHICAD to Twinmotion and Unreal.
A VR educational game and gamified virtual tours for historic preservation and public awareness, built at Texas Tech under Prof. Hadighi.
Data gathering, mining and visualization of the architecture of Henry Trost (El Paso) using Octoparse, RapidMiner and Processing. Presented at APT 2023 Seattle with a student scholarship.
Playable things I have built. Everything runs in the browser; more on itch.io and GitHub.
A narrative educational game exploring caravanserais and cultural heritage across Seljuk-era Türkiye.
A historical text-based educational game about Iran’s Safavid caravanserais and the Silk Roads. Best presentation, ASCAAD 2021.
Uncover the secrets of the past and preserve the legacy within Mammoth Cave.
A single-file narrative game about ethical heritage representation at Mammoth Cave. Presented at SIGraDi 2026.
A fast, classroom-friendly readiness checker for museums adopting XR. Get a level, tips and first steps in minutes. APT 2025 alpha.
Museums edition: find your XR readiness and next steps with one flowchart.
A WebAR viewer for a museum artifact that opens from a QR code with no app install.
Jams, prototypes and experiments.
Peer-reviewed articles, chapters and conference papers. Full list on Google Scholar ↗.
Varinlioğlu, Eshaghi, Vaez Afshar. In The Routledge Companion to Artificial Intelligence in Architecture (2nd ed.).
Mansourihanis, Hemmati, Afshar, Eshaghi, Varinlioğlu. Case Studies in the Environment.
Vaez Afshar, Eshaghi, Kim. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture (DLA 2022, Harvard GSD), 435–442.
Aytaç, Aluçlu, Dalay, Vaez Afshar. Journal of Design Studio 4(spi 1), 35–50.
Vaez Afshar, Shackelford. SIGraDi 2026, Santiago, Chile.
Vaez Afshar, Hadighi. ASCAAD 2026.
Vaez Afshar, Eshaghi, Hadighi, Varinlioğlu. eCAADe 2024, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Vaez Afshar, Eshaghi, Kim, Afshar. ASCAAD 2023, Amman, Jordan.
Vaez Afshar, Eshaghi, Hadighi. eCAADe RIS 2023, Tallinn, Estonia.
Eshaghi, Vaez Afshar, Hadighi. ARCC 2023, Dallas, 297–305.
SIGraDi 2022, Lima, Peru.
Varinlioğlu, Vaez Afshar, Eshaghi, Balaban, Nagakura. CAADRIA 2022, Tokyo, 69–78.
eCAADe 2021, Novi Sad, Serbia, 273–280.
ASCAAD 2021, Cairo, Egypt, 306–316.
Symposium on Art and Design Education, Ankara.
With Shackelford. APT International Conference, Indianapolis.
With Tiwari, Wang. Poster, IMMERSE Symposium, University of Illinois.
With Shackelford. APT International Conference, Providence.
NCPE Annual Conference, Milwaukee.
NCPE Annual Conference, New Orleans.
Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, European Cultural Centre.
Awards, scholarships, and the classrooms I have worked in.
Inaugural cohort, Spurlock Museum & Humanities Research Institute, UIUC
Seattle, Providence, Indianapolis
Four consecutive years
Best presentation by a young researcher, eCAADe
ASCAAD, Cairo
ACCELERATION (Architect & Entrepreneur), Urmia
University of Illinois · $10,000
University of Illinois
Huckabee College, Payne, Louden, Sasser AIA, Robinson
Online platform design tool for virtual landscape · $25,000
Co-course creator & TA, Prof. Shackelford
Teaching assistant, Prof. Cermak
TA: Advanced Architectural Technology, Community Design & Development
3rd Playful by Design conference, UIUC
DigitalFUTURES — photogrammetry, materials and character design
MIT 4.550/4.570, Prof. Nagakura
Production, research and community roles.
Game Studies and Design stu/dio, University of Illinois. Mo Sho (live-performance platform), VR Rocketry (aerospace education), VRchaeology — scope, budget, QA and sponsor coordination.
JHP Architecture / Urban Design, Dallas. Gamified ArchViz with AI in Unreal Engine.
OyuNest Digital Game and Design Technologies, İTÜ ARI Teknokent, Türkiye.
ARTechi Startup — an augmented reality platform for architecture. Urmia Science & Technology Park, Iran.
Center for Immersive Computing, University of Illinois.
National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE).
CHI 2027, GALA '26, eCAADe, CAADRIA, ASCAAD, SIGraDi, CAAD Futures, IJHCI, Behaviour & Information Technology, International Journal of Serious Games and others.
I'm open to research collaborations, heritage and museum projects, and conversations about XR and games. The best way to reach me is email.