Dr. Salam Daher is an assistant professor in informatics and computer science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). She is a courtesy faculty in the College of Nursing at the University of Central Florida (UCF). She has a PhD in Modeling and Simulation (UCF, 2018) and a postdoc focusing on healthcare simulation & technology (UCF, 2019), an MS in Digital Arts and Sciences (UF engineering, 2006), and a BS in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics (LAU, 2004). Her research focuses on healthcare simulation and technology, as well as collaborative projects involving other disciplines such as education, and languages to solve real world problems. Her expertise and interests include computer graphics, VR/AR/MR, synthetic environments, interactive 3D virtual humans with animated facial expressions, speech, and body language for the purposes of simulation and training in the education, military, and healthcare domains. Before her PhD, she worked in the industry for more than 5 years where she gained experience as a multimedia software developer leading projects in simulation and training. Dr. Daher is a patent holder for her work on a new class of augmented reality patient simulators called Physical-Virtual Patients (PVP). The PVP allows healthcare educators to interact with a life-size simulated patient by providing real-time physical tactile cues (e.g., temperature, pulse), auditory cues (e.g., speech, heart sounds), and rich dynamic visual cues such as facial expressions (e.g., pain, emotions) and changes in appearance (e.g., skin color, wounds). She was selected by the Society of Simulation in Healthcare for the 2021 Technology Innovator of the year award.
