By Becky Malewitz | February 19, 2026
Immersive technology isn’t just about lasers and robots, it's about ideas, exploration and wondering, “What if?”
But sometimes even the most brilliant “What if?” is quickly dashed by the more practical “But how?”
Thanks to the new Immersive Technologies Lab (ITL) in the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship, the “how” of making ideas come to life is as easy as walking through its doors.
“It can be daunting to know even where to start with this technology. Having an open and accessible laboratory environment invites people to be curious and ask questions that they otherwise may not if they didn’t have direct access to the technology.”
Daniel Johnson, interim co-director of the Navari Center
Located on the second floor of the Hesburgh Library, the ITL is a centralized hub where members of the Notre Dame community can learn about and explore the uses of extended reality (XR), including virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR).
“You can stop in the lab and ask anything about immersive technologies, especially if you're not sure where to start,” Julie Vecchio, interim co-director of the Navari Center, said. “Everybody knows the Library. We are about making resources and materials accessible to people; we have books, journals and electronic databases; this multimedia experience is just another kind of library service.”
The ITL opened its doors during the fall of 2025, thanks to a generous gift from Thomas '82 and Julie Carey. Officially, it launches on March 24, when the Navari Center will hold an open house for the campus community to see what the space has to offer.
“The launch of the Immersive Technologies Lab is an exciting step in our efforts to expand the Navari Center’s outreach to students, faculty and staff across campus. I’m so grateful to Tom and Julie Carey for their visionary support of digital scholarship at Notre Dame. We can’t wait to see the projects that develop in the new lab.”
Margaret Meserve, Edward H. Arnold Dean of the Hesburgh Libraries
The lab is a new offering of the Navari Center, which works to empower faculty and students through access to expertise in digital methodologies, emerging technologies and technology-enriched spaces.
“The Navari Center is a hub on campus where anyone can come with a research question or a resource need, regardless of experience level,” Vecchio said. “You don't need a departmental affiliation to use our resources. We're here to help students, faculty and staff figure out how to meet emerging technology needs.”
For the last decade, there's been a variety of efforts on campus to explore and develop XR environments that advance faculty and student academic and research objectives. The ITL serves as the gateway to this broader XR ecosystem.
“The lab gives us the opportunity to represent Notre Dame’s broader XR portfolio that's developed over a number of years,” Adam Heet, Navari Center digital projects specialist, said. “If students, faculty or staff want to borrow some technology, we can make that happen. They can come in and try VR equipment, or say, ‘I have an idea, is this something that could be VR-able?’ This is a space where VR happens.”
The ITL’s central location in the Hesburgh Library is a natural fit for the new space that will serve as the front door for XR across campus.
“The library is where you go to learn about stuff,” Heet said. “By positioning the Immersive Technologies Lab in the Library, we did two things: we centralized this innovation space in the context of the academic environment. We also leveraged highly visible real estate in an area where students can accidentally find us.”
Heet, a member of the campus XR collective, has collaborated on several projects across campus. His recent collaboration, featured in The Observer, gave Korean language students the opportunity to virtually visit a sarangbang, a space dedicated to reading, writing, artistic practice and intellectual conversation.
“A lot of times when people think of XR, they think of video games or something science-related, but there are so many academic uses for the technology,” Heet said. “Through VR, you can go to places that are hard to access. The tech lets students walk into a tomb, basilica or church on the other side of the world. It allows creative or engineering artworks to be seen in context, which is something you don’t get when looking at them in books. It’s about creating an interactive space that has an educational or academic impact relevant to our student body.”
With the lab’s accessible location and welcoming atmosphere, Heet hopes that students, faculty and staff across campus will pop in with questions or just out of curiosity.
“I want people who’ve never operated, interacted with or utilized VR or XR before to just come and visit,” he said. “This technology has agency to help us understand concepts, spaces, actions, movements and so many other things we haven't even explored yet. Our computers have the capability to help manifest people's ideas, and our staff has the expertise to walk anyone along the creative pathway from concept and troubleshooting to refining their idea and making something impactful.”
By creating a space that invites everyone, including individuals who may even consider themselves outside the VR sphere, Heet, Johnson and Vecchio seek to broaden the lab's portfolio. They also hope to transform the common understanding of XR—a technology often linked to lasers and robots—into an accessible resource that elevates the academic and research experience.
“Our portfolio will continue to get stronger as more people come in and ask us to help with projects,” Heet said. “There are people on this campus who have a lot of fantastic ideas just waiting to be explored; our doors are open.”
The Immersive Technologies Lab is open to all members of the Notre Dame community. If you are interested in scheduling a consultation, connecting with the greater XR community across campus or prototyping a project, contact Adam Heet.