Jiachen Liang is a PhD student at the School of Advanced Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China. Her research aims to improve cultural heritage experience by investigating the digital affordances of extended reality (XR) technologies that support playful user experience design, and exploring appropriate ways to enable user-generated content for participatory experience in museums and historical sites.

Over the past decades, cultural institutions have been working on the conservation, preservation, and popularization of historical artifacts, monuments, sites, and intangible cultural heritage. A transformative wave of innovation driven by digital technologies is currently reshaping the landscape of museum and site visits, with XR technologies emerging as a potent catalyst for change. By enabling immersive digital presentations and interactions, XR technologies enhance the comprehension of both experts and laypeople alike.

Jiachen will adopt a practice-based research approach to advance the research agenda in XR and cultural heritage, with a particular emphasis on creating engaging and participatory cultural heritage experiences.