“I still find immersive Virtual Reality as thrilling now as when I first tried it 20 years ago,” writes Professor Mel Slater, Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Robotics and AI, on his personal blog. Slater, recipient of the IEEE VGTC’s 2005 Virtual Reality Career Award, is ICREA Professor and Head of the Event Lab at Barcelona University and part-time Professor of Virtual Environments at UCL.

Here, we talk to him about his research, technical advances and challenges in the field, and how virtual reality can help raise awareness about sustainability and global change.