The Institute for Intelligent Interaction and Immersive Experience (IIIX) congratulates its former employee Dr. Daniel Hepperle on his appointment as professor. He has been Professor of Augmented Reality Development at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences since March 1, 2026.
From 2018 to 2026, Daniel Hepperle worked as a research assistant at IIIX at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences. At IIIX, he was involved, among other things, as deputy institute spokesperson, helped to set up the iXperience Lab and was active in teaching .
In 2025, he completed his doctorate at the University of Hohenheim in cooperation with Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences with the top grade summa cum laude. In his dissertation "Exploring the Potential of Immersive Virtual Reality for Social Science Research", he investigated the potential of immersive virtual reality environments for social science research.
With his new professorship, Daniel Hepperle continues his work at the interface of technology, design and interactive media. We asked him about his new field of work and how he got there.
Congratulations on your professorship, Daniel! What are you most looking forward to in your new role?
I was lucky enough to find a professor in Matthias (Dr. Matthias Wölfel is the spokesperson for IIIX and supervised Daniel Hepperle's doctoral thesis) who has challenged and encouraged me since my Master's degree. I am therefore particularly looking forward to getting to know curious students and working with them on exciting projects and, of course, successfully guiding them into professional life or an academic career. In addition, the media faculty in Offenburg offers me a fantastic new environment. I'm really looking forward to exchanging ideas with my new colleagues and to making good ideas visible again in many new collaborations, projects and exhibitions.
What topics would you particularly like to advance in your research and teaching?
I see great potential in my previous research on the use of immersive virtual reality in connection with social psychological research. There is still an incredible amount to find out, and I currently see topics such as embodied conversational agents and Gaussian splattingas extremely interesting and promising. I am also very interested in socially relevant topics such as the use of AR glasses in public spaces. I see enormous potential here, but also a new challenge in terms of privacy and equal cooperation.
When you look back on your time at IIIX: What projects or moments do you particularly remember?
There are many wonderful and exciting moments! The founding of the institute and my role as deputy spokesperson alone were formative milestones. Another highlight for me was setting up the iXperience Lab. It's great to see how former students have developed there. Some have become employees who are now writing their own dissertations. Others have become successful founders with a good project idea via the EXIST program. Of course, I also remember special projects in terms of content. The collaboration with Mercedes-Benz Design, for example, was extremely exciting and valuable from a professional point of view (thanks again to Torben for your commitment!). The exhibitions and the symposium at the ZKM will also remain in my memory for a long time. It's always great to see that the work and thoughts you do in the lab actually work "outside" and are relevant. But in addition to all the work, there were also many personal highlights and team experiences that I look back on fondly. Whether it was a joint golf course, my 'Best Presentation Award', which I won at the ICVR, or the fact that I probably won one of the most beautiful doctoral student hats in the whole of Baden-Württemberg from the team ;)
What advice would you give to students who want to pursue an academic career themselves?
"Be curious!" - Of course, there are also dry spells when nothing goes as planned. At the beginning of my work at the HKA, I realized together with my colleague at the time that review processes are sometimes super helpful, but sometimes also somewhat arbitrary. We therefore decided to toast the submission of the paper directly and not just the publication. So far, this has always turned out well. That's exactly what "Be curious" means to me. You shouldn't let formalities or dry spells get in the way of the joy of research, discovery and experimentation. Curiosity means questioning things anyway and moving on.
Will you remain connected to the IIIX - perhaps through collaborations or joint projects?
Sure, of course. For example, we are currently writing a joint paper and Matthias is acting as a senior advisor on my project proposal. And of course I want to see you wearing your doctoral hats! :)
We thank Daniel for the interview and are very happy about his new career stage! We at IIIX wish him every success as a professor, exciting research projects and inspiring courses.