Faculty
Shichao Zhao
Shichao Zhao
Assistant Professor of Design and Innovation Management
Design & Innovation Management

Shichao Zhao

shichao.zhao@oregonstate.edu

Faculty
Shichao Zhao
Overview
Overview
Background
Publications

Overview

Biography

From 2019, Dr. Shichao Zhao undertook the role of Postdoctoral Researcher in Digital Archaeology and Heritage within the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Bournemouth University, Dr. Zhao contributed to exploring potential collaborative research opportunities and grants in different subjects and with multiple departments. After this, Dr. Zhao went on to undertake a Research Fellow position in Participatory Research Communication Design in the School of Design at the University of Leeds. Dr. Zhao utilised Participatory Action Research as the main method to explore the use of interactivity to reach out to different audiences and demonstrate how art-based projects tackle societal challenges through online exhibitions in a Horizon 2020 research project titled ‘Acting on the Margins: Arts as Social Sculpture (AMASS)’. Following on from this, Dr. Zhao was a Lecturer in Emerging Technologies and subject lead for the MDes Future Heritage Design programme at the Glasgow School of Art, which Dr. Zhao developed the curriculum for. Prior to joining OSU, Dr. Zhao was a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in UX Design, which includes being courses lead for Interactions & Experiences and Design for Heritage Futures in the School of Design and Creative Arts at Loughborough University.

Credentials

Ph.D. Human Computer Interaction, Newcastle University
M.Eng. Interactive Media Design, Zhejiang University
B.A. Fine Art, Zhejiang University
FHEA, Fellow of Higher Education Academy
PGCert. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Loughborough University

Career Interests

Dr. Shichao Zhao is an Assistant Professor of Design and Innovation Management in the College of Business at Oregon State University. His research sits at the intersection of design research and HCI, examining how interactive technologies can support cultural heritage, community participation, and sociotechnical innovation. His research focuses on designing participatory sociotechnical infrastructures that enable communities to reinterpret cultural knowledge and build cultural resilience. From 2024, Dr. Zhao has been working on various projects including ‘Regenerate’ which is about improving research culture through re-thinking and regenerating research groupings and communities within the School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, and also acting as a co-investigator for the funded project (FEC £95,577) – Named after Nelson: Learning from places named after Nelson Mandela through graphic heritage (NaN).

Background

Service

Journal Reviewer for International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 2026.
Journal Reviewer for Cogent Arts & Humanities, 2026.
PhD External Examiner for Ximing Wang - Exploring the creative potential of virtual reality (VR): designing product environments to enhance textile design education and extend the opportunities for textile manufacturing collaboration, University of Leeds, 2025.
Conference Reviewer for The ACM CHI’26 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2025.
Journal Reviewer for Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2025.
Guest Editor for Applied Sciences for the Special Issue - Advances in Digital Heritage Technologies, 2025.
Editorial Board Members, Journal of Intangible Cultural Heritage Studies (JICHS), Sin-Chn Scientific Press Pte. Ltd, 2025, 2025.
Associate Chair for ACM Designing Interactive Systems 2025 - Critical Computing and Design Theory subcommittee.
Associate Chair for ACM Designing Interactive Systems 2024 - Critical Computing and Design Theory subcommittee.
PhD Independent Reviewer, How National Culture Integrates with Contemporary Animation: Traditional Chinese Animation Design, Loughborough University, 2023.
Sub-chair for Theme Track (Systemic Citizens: Equity, Power, and Relational Autonomy) in Design Research Society (DRS) conference 2024.
Organisation Committee for Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD12) 2023, Loughborough: Synergy Between Sciences.
Associate Chair for ACM Designing Interactive Systems 2023 - Experiences, Artifacts, and Technology subcommittee.
Guest Editor for Sustainability for the Special Issue - Product Design Innovation and Consumer Psychology, 2022.
Conference Reviewer for The ACM CHI’23 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2022.
Journal Reviewer for Applied Sciences, 2022.
Journal Reviewer for Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 2022.
Journal Reviewer for The Design Journal, 2022.
Conference Reviewer for International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR), 2021. 
Journal Reviewer for Heritage, 2021.
Journal Reviewer for Sustainability, 2021.
Conference Reviewer for The ACM CHI’20 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2019.
Conference Reviewer for 13th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT), 2019. 
Journal Reviewer for The Arts in Society Research Network, 2019.    

Publications

Academic Journal
DSGN - DIM

“Immersive HCI for Intangible Cultural Heritage in Tourism Contexts: A Narrative Review of Design and Evaluation”

Immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and multisensory interaction are increasingly deployed to support the transmission and presentation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), particularly within tourism and heritage interpretation contexts. In cultural tourism, ICH is often encountered through museums, heritage sites, festivals, and digitally mediated experiences rather than through sustained community-based transmission, raising important challenges for interaction design, accessibility, and cultural representation. This study presents a narrative review of immersive human–computer interaction (HCI) research in the context ICH, with a particular focus on tourism-facing applications. An initial dataset of 145 records was identified through a structured search of major academic databases from their inception to 2024. Following staged screening based on relevance, publication type, and temporal criteria, 97 empirical or technical studies published after 2020 were included in the final analysis. The review synthesises how immersive technologies are applied across seven ICH domains and examines their deployment in key tourism-related settings, including museum interpretation, heritage sites, and sustainable cultural tourism experiences. The findings reveal persistent tensions between technological innovation, cultural authenticity, and user engagement, challenges that are especially pronounced in tourism context. The review also maps the dominant methodological approaches, including user-centred design, participatory frameworks, and mixed-method strategies. By integrating structured screening with narrative synthesis, the review highlights fragmentation in the field, uneven methodological rigour, and gaps in both cultural adaptability and long-term sustainability, and outlines future directions for culturally responsive and inclusive immersive HCI research in ICH tourism.
Full Details

Shichao Zhao "Immersive HCI for Intangible Cultural Heritage in Tourism Contexts: A Narrative Review of Design and Evaluation" Sustainability Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 153 pages 2025 View on: Google Scholar

Full Details
Conference
DSGN - DIM

“From Focal to Scattered: Designing Culturally Adaptive VR for Chinese Architectural Painting”

Traditional Chinese architectural painting (jiehua), utilizes multi-perspective spatial composition and deliberate blankness (liubai) to create dynamic, interpretive visual experiences. These spatial and aesthetic conventions can pose cognitive challenges for non-Chinese viewers, particularly those familiar with Western single-point perspectives. Study 1 investigates these perceptual barriers through sketch-based interviews. Building on these insights, Study 2 presents an early-stage Virtual Reality (VR) prototype featuring perspective toggling and contextual annotations. Preliminary feedback suggests that these features enhance both spatial comprehension and immersive engagement. Future research will expand user testing to museum environments and broader cross-cultural contexts.


Full Details

Yuting Cheng, Shichao Zhao, Jiashu Yang and Kamarin Merritt "From Focal to Scattered: Designing Culturally Adaptive VR for Chinese Architectural Painting" Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2025

Full Details
Conference
DSGN - DIM

“Systemic Citizens: Equity, Power, and Relational Autonomy”

Citizen-led design approaches enable spaces for communities to explore and negotiate their priorities into actionable strategies. Digital technologies have played a paramount role in encouraging them to have a stronger voice in public services, local democracy and their wellbeing. However, these approaches might exacerbate barriers to equity and just participation. Moreover, in some domains (e.g., education, healthcare or urban planning), those stakeholders that "hold the power" are reluctant to partake in genuine participatory approaches. Given this situation, systemic design can transform citizen engagement practices to strengthen the connectedness among citizens and create awareness of the relational attributes of societal issues. This systemic lens could then help in the transition towards responsible communities that recognise themselves as part of the wider (problematic) system, be able to identify leverage points to face existing societal complex crises. This track aims to explore and reflect on the following questions: How to enable citizens to recognise themselves as interrelated actors that have an impact on collective wellbeing and flourishing? How can collective agency and relational autonomy be creatively and fairly embedded in individual decisions? How could systemic design be used to empower vulnerable groups to map out their future wellbeing in their local community? How can systemic inequalities become design principles to break perpetuated harming structures? How to explore efficient systemic design strategies to understand the complexity of social systems in an interdisciplinary research environment? How do we nurture societies to learn and strengthen bonds after negative consequences of a ‘failure’ community initiative?
Full Details

Cecilia Landa-Avila, Shichao Zhao, Sine Celik, Pushpi Bagchi and Nicolai Brodersen Hansen "Systemic Citizens: Equity, Power, and Relational Autonomy" DRS 2024

Full Details