Organizers
Organizers
Dr. Greg Welch, University of Central Florida
Dr. Stevie Carnell, University of Central Florida
Dr. Gerd Bruder, University of Central Florida
Co-Organizers
Dr. Jeanine Stefanucci, University of Utah
Dr. Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn, University of Georgia
Dr. Valerie Taylor, Lehigh University
Dr. Tabitha Peck, Davidson College
Dr. Jeremy Bailenson, Stanford University
Dr. Greg Welch
University of Central Florida
Dr. Welch is a Pegasus Professor and the AdventHealth Endowed Chair in Healthcare Simulation at the University of Central Florida. He is the Co-Director of the UCF Synthetic Reality Lab (SREAL). His research interests include human-computer interaction, virtual and augmented reality, and multidisciplinary applications. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors, an ACM SIGGRAPH Pioneer, and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.
Dr. Stevie Carnell
University of Central Florida
Dr. Carnell is a Computer Science Post Doctoral Scholar in the Virtual and Augmented Reality Lab at the University of Central Florida. She studies how people communicate with virtual humans and in XR, more generally. Further, she is particularly interested in how XR developers can develop diverse virtual humans in an inclusive manner.
Dr. Gerd Bruder
University of Central Florida
Dr. Bruder is a Research Associate Professor for virtual and augmented reality at the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida. His research interests include human-computer interaction, perception and cognition, social presence, and 3D user interfaces.
Dr. Jeanine Stefanucci
University of Utah
Dr. Stefanucci is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Utah. She is co-Director of the Visual Perception and Spatial Cognition Laboratory. Her research investigates how and whether emotional, physiological, and physical states of the body have an influence on how we see, think about, and navigate our environments. She conducts this research in indoor and outdoor settings as well as in virtual environments (both immersive and desktop).
Dr. Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn
University of Georgia
Dr. Ahn is an Associate Professor in the Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. She is the Director of the Games and Virtual Environments Lab. Her main program of research investigates how immersive and interactive digital media transform traditional rules of communication and social interactions, looking at how virtual experiences shape the way that people think, feel, and behave in the physical world.
Dr. Valerie Taylor
Lehigh University
Dr. Taylor is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Lehigh University. She is an experimental social psychologist, and she holds a joint appointment in the Africana Studies Program at Lehigh University. Her research areas include social identity threat, intergroup contact, stereotyping and discrimination, cultural psychology, and applications of emerging technologies in the study of intergroup relations.
Dr. Tabita Peck
Davidson College
Dr. Peck is an Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College and director of the Davidson Research in Immersive Virtual Environments (DRIVE) Lab. One of her passions is making computer science accessible for all students. Both her teaching practices and research focus on minimizing biases and stereotype threats that currently harm underrepresented minorities and women in STEM disciplines.
Dr. Jeremy Bailenson
Stanford University
Dr. Bailenson is the Thomas More Storke Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. He is the founding Director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. He studies the psychology of Virtual and Augmented Reality, in particular how virtual experiences lead to changes in perceptions of self and others. His lab builds and studies systems that allow people to meet in virtual space, and explores the changes in the nature of social interaction.