Skip to Top Navigation Skip to Content Skip to Footer
Save the Date for Giving Day, April 8, 2026

When you make a gift on Giving Day, you're supporting the area of campus that means the most to you, and with various matching gift challenges throughout the day, you have the opportunity to make your gift go even further. 

For more information, follow this link.

Thiyagarajan, Tharun, MS, MBA, BCA, DCT

Tharun Thiyagarajan, MS, MBA, BCA, DCT
Instructor College of Business School of Technology and Innovation
Contact: Husson University
1 College Circle Bangor, Maine 04401
tharunt@husson.edu
Phone: 207.992.1957
Room: 165 Harold Alfond Hall

Biography

Tharun Thiyagarajan serves as an Instructor in the School of Technology and Innovation at Husson University. With more than 26 years of professional experience in Extended Reality (XR), software development, immersive systems, and technical leadership, he integrates industry practice with academic research and applied instruction.

Since joining Husson University in Fall 2023, Tharun's responsibilities include XR, Information Technology, Software Development, Game Development, Graphic Design, and Animation as well as Project Management at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His teaching philosophy centers on experiential learning. He believes students learn best by building, testing, and solving real problems rather than memorizing static content. His courses function as active lab environments where students design working systems, debug code, and present functional applications that reflect industry standards. Through hands-on development, live demonstrations, and public showcases of student work, he emphasizes confidence, curiosity, and professional readiness.

Drawing on his extensive industry experience, Tharun works to bridge the gap between academic instruction and evolving industry needs. He has led and contributed to cross-department immersive initiatives, including a multi-user XR Virtual Courtroom for Criminal Justice education, a digital twin restaurant simulation for Hospitality and Tourism workforce training, and browser-based XR simulations designed to expand experiential learning in fully online STEM education.

Tharun research examines immersive simulation, digital twin learning environments, and spatial computing–informed pedagogical models in higher education. He is currently authoring multiple scholarly papers, including a browser-embedded XR simulation model for experiential animal behavior training in online STEM programs, which focuses on scalable and accessible immersive learning without specialized hardware.

Tharun holds a Master of Science in Criminal Justice Administration, a Master of Business Administration, and a Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Management.

Prior to academia, Tharun held leadership roles in immersive technologies and technical direction, working with organizations including NASA, Boeing, Pearson, McGraw Hill, Siemens, Novartis, and General Motors. He relocated to Bangor with his wife and son and remains committed to strengthening applied, technology-enhanced education at Husson University.