Tell us about your background.
I am an aerospace scientist and interactive media designer who has worked with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the US Navy, and NASA Ames Research Center to investigate and visualize the biggest what-ifs in modern human research. As a science communicator, I host and take part in “pop science” events that bring together filmmakers and K-12 communities to imagine accurate science concepts and scientist representation in entertainment media. As a Master’s student under USC Games, Media, and Health program, I translate raw user testing data into narrative design insights for mixed media settings. I am also the USC Games’ Graduate Assistant for Usability and oversee the production of USC Advanced Games Projects. Exciting ongoing projects on campus are: World in a Cell, Wing Wor, and the USC Games’ Advanced Projects (all open to playtesting)!
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
Stemming from a background in human factors, I studied the human element and its relationship to the hardware/software of a system, but often it was poised as a main source of error case studies and perceived on a linear scale of “easy” to “difficult to use.” AR/VR sandbox-style games like Magnopus’ space station exploration, Mission: ISS, demonstrated to me the power of self-storytelling and how it can arise spontaneously for users. These stories that we as users develop and receive ourselves can be a source of creativity, freedom, and medicine. I see this when I study AR/VR in tandem with narrative medicine, where users can begin to understand new environments just as much as what they have left behind. I look forward to exploring the importance of narrative delivered by the unique immersion mixed reality media brings.
Which of your VR/AR accomplishments are you most excited about?
This past semester, I led a usability department to bring the virtual reality city-builder project, Neon City from a greybox prototype to “Alpha.” To do this, our team held weekly user testing sessions to evaluate playtesters’ fresh perspectives alongside our own design goals. The result is a playable sandbox build with synthwave visuals and hand-tracking controls (your hands are the controllers!) that make players feel like they are Iron Man tinkering in his lab. The final version will be available to play at USC Games Expo in May!
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
The buzz around the space industry communities is that there is now an open call for AR/VR solutions to identify and mediate astronaut health problems. It is very exciting to hear of open encouragement for solution exploration and creative design thinking for the unique challenges of spaceflight.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path? Nothing is more valuable than working on interdisciplinary teams. Learning and using the lingo of different professions can allow the project at hand to reach new creative heights. People at any age might even discover natural talents of their own when learning from their colleagues.
Anything you are passionate about aside from AR/VR?
At this point, my passion about bridging science concepts and cinematic arts is probably apparent. If this interests you and you are near campus, feel free to check out the events and the mission statement of the Sloan Foundation which centers on the representation of science in the media. The foundation hosted a recent event this past semester centered around Pushing Virtual Technologies, which was moderated by USC’s Entertainment Technology Center. A takeaway from the night was that one of the event speakers, Jon Landau, offered a peek behind the curtain and explained why more close-up shots were now technologically possible to be shown in Avatar 2. Seminars like these that welcome filmmakers, scientists, and engineers, are sure to inspire students from any level of profession.
November 1, 2022
Rylan Pozniak is a VR/AR developer.
July 12, 2022
Alexandre Dussaud is a clinical psychologist at C2Care, a French company that develops VR therapy softwares. He’s specialized in CBT and VRET and provides long distance VR therapy as well as training for mental health professionals.
Tell us about your background.
I was born and raised in Nîmes, in the South of France. That’s also where I studied psychology and got my Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology, with a specialty in Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy. After I graduated, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started my own practice online, doing all my sessions on Zoom. It gave me great flexibility and experience, but I felt I needed something different at this point in my life. So after a year of private practice, I joined C2Care, to explore other professional sides, like research and development or professional training
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
I’ve been interested in AR/VR as soon as it arrived in the video game industry. Back then, the hardware was really expensive, but the whole concept looked so very promising. That’s why I was so interested in joining C2Care, being able to combine my love for psychology and therapy and the novel and exciting side of VR.
Which of your VR/AR accomplishments are you most excited about?
I’m really excited by how easy it is nowadays to receive VR therapy with our patient program. Our patient can receive their headset with the therapeutic softwares pre-installed, and can follow therapist-driven session from the comfort of their home. With the proper guidance, they’re also able to expose themselves on their own, between session, and make fast and meaningful progress, which really increases their self-efficacy and self-esteem. Being able to receive such innovative therapy so easily seems like a huge step in helping to increase global mental health on the long run.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
Being able to develop our patient program outside of France, which is something we are starting to do, is a project I’m really excited for. And we’ve just launched a new program that allows mental health professionals outside of C2Care to provide long distance VR therapy to their patients, which is also really exciting. Lastly, I’m really curious about what the whole concept of metaverse can bring in terms of mental health in virtual reality. We definitely need more research into that, but there’s definitely a very broad horizon of ideas and possibilities there to create long distance meaningful links with patients and help bring good care to people who’d have a harder time receiving it otherwise.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
Don’t be afraid to try new things and step out of your comfort zone, because it’ll stop being uncomfortable after a little while and now you have a larger comfort zone to thrive into. That’s basically exposure therapy but I guess this is also good life and professional advice.
Anything you are passionate about aside from AR/VR?
I’m really into indie video games and video game development. I really think the creative future of the video game industry lies there. There are so many great indie games and game projects that can be so meaningful and emotionally charged and can be really deep experiences. I also like visual arts, I love to draw and take on creative visual projects. Cooking and discovering new foods is also really important for me, especially when they come from other countries, that’s always a small dive into foreign cultures and that’s really meaningful to be able to share such experiences through food.
March 10, 2022
Coralie Phanord is a Programmer at the Neural Plasticity and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory at USC as well as The Pa Laboratory at UC San Diego Health. She received her Bachelor of Engineering at Dartmouth College in 2016. At NPNL, Coralie programs virtual reality experiences for neurorehabilitation purposes.
Tell us about your background.
I grew up in Haiti, a warm tropical island. I then received my Bachelor of Engineering at Dartmouth College, in cold and snowy New Hampshire. There, I studied computer science, engineering science, and digital arts. Unsurprisingly, after graduating, I fled the cold and moved to sunny California. I worked as a software engineer at a VR/AR company in Los Angeles. During that time, I repeatedly noticed how intensely people reacted to VR experiences. As a result, I became interested in investigating how VR could impact the mind and brain. Consequently, I decided to pivot to research and I joined the Neural Plasticity and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory as a VR programmer.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
I sort of fell into it. My first job after graduation involved working on the Virtual Production team for Disney’s The Lion King. We created a system that allowed the filmmakers to shoot the film in VR. This allowed the filmmakers to mimic live action film production within a virtual set. This experience allowed me to view virtual reality as more than an upgraded gaming system; it was a tool that had the potential to impact the human experience in numerous domains. My interest was sparked and I was excited to explore this further.
Which of your VR/AR accomplishments are you most excited about?
I’m most excited about our work on REINVENT, a brain computer interface. I have had the opportunity to design and develop virtual reality and biofeedback-based games for the rehabilitation of stroke survivors. It has been very fulfilling to work with clinicians as well as stroke survivors in order to explore ways to make the system engaging and user-friendly. I’m encouraged by our published research which suggests that REINVENT may help some people with chronic stroke improve their motor control. I’m excited to get it in the hands of more people!
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
I have often joked that we are still in the “Nokia box phone” phase of virtual reality. With the many recent improvements in VR such as hand tracking, and inside-out tracking, I suspect that we are entering the “sidekick phone” phase of virtual reality. Ultimately, I’m very excited for us to reach the “Smartphone” phase. As VR technology continues to improve and optimize, VR will become accessible to more people. In addition, our ability to implement virtual reality solutions in healthcare will increase. I look forward to a future with smaller headsets, better rendering capabilities, and improved tracking to name a few.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
Follow your curiosity.
Anything you are passionate about aside from AR/VR?
When I’m not working, I love to dance, lift weights, and spend time on the beach.
February 2, 2022
Donggyu Kim is a student ambassador for the USC SMART-VR Center as well as a graduate student at the University of Southern California pursuing a M.S. degree in Communication Data Science from the Annenberg's School of Communication and Viterbi School of Engineering.
Tell us about your background?
I am a M.S. Student in Communication Data Science, which is a cross-disciplinary degree offered by Annenberg’s School of Communication and Viterbi School of Engineering. I got my M.A. in Advertising at the University of Texas at Austin, and my B.S. in Advertising at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
I first became interested in VR / AR when working at a PR company in South Korea. Our client was NOKIA and we were working on a press release related to the world’s first launch of the 5G network. During that time, I visited lots of 5G experience centers managed by Mobile Carrier companies, and became interested in VR after experiencing and seeing the potential.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
VR in digital marketing is expected to grow because VR has the potential to maximize customer experience. I’m excited to explore how attributes of VR such as presence, amusement, dynamics, and 3D effects affect people's attitude toward advertising. Through this, I want to find out how advertising in the future can be less antipathetic to users. I hope to gain more insights in understanding the psychological and social impacts of using Virtual Reality.
Anything you are passionate about aside from AR/VR? I love to travel, I have been to 48 states in the US (everywhere except Alaska and North Dakota). When the pandemic is over, I want to travel to Spain and Portugal for a month. Another current priority is becoming a doctoral student.
January 3, 2022
Sean Fraga is a Mellon postdoctoral fellow in USC's Humanities in a Digital World Program. A historian of the North American West, he specializes in connections between U.S. imperial expansion, race, indigeneity, technology, and the environment. His work at U.S.C. focuses on digital mapping, data visualization, and augmented reality.
Unlike many of the people interviewed here, I’m from the humanities side of the university. I hold a Ph.D. in history from Princeton and I’m currently a Mellon postdoctoral fellow with the Humanities in a Digital World program in USC Dornsife.
My doctoral training was analog and traditional, emphasizing close reading of historical, archival materials. But as I researched and wrote my dissertation—now my book project—I discovered that I kept using digital tools to answer weird little questions that popped up along the way. Digital mapping and data visualizations were my gateway to the digital humanities, or DH, an area of practice interested in using digital methods to inform humanities research and interpretation. DH is a way of bringing new light to old stories and questions. And my DH work got me thinking about other unexpected ways we might creatively bring computers into our familiar work of research, teaching, and learning.
2. What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
I’m probably late to the party, but the turning point for me was when Apple really started promoting augmented reality with the iPhone X. Most of the demonstrations were pretty goofy, like inserting a digital T-Rex into a pickup basketball game. I don’t think I ever really did anything with AR at that point—I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t even played Pokémon Go. But something about the essential promise of AR—that it could bring virtual objects into the physical world—stuck with me. I eventually realized that AR can be especially valuable for people who want or need to examine highly detailed objects that, for whatever reason, they can’t physically access, like a jet engine or a human heart. And then I realized that I’m one of those people: In my book research, I routinely come across references to archival materials I would love to examine, but which are housed in a distant archive. So I started thinking about how AR could be a research tool for humanists. At the same time, I was starting my postdoc at USC. My program is deliberately named "Humanities in a Digital World"—it’s more than just a digital humanities program. That framing got me thinking about what today’s digital world looks like, and particularly what it looks like for humanists. I kept coming back to smartphones: Smartphones have become essential for so many people, and I think there’s enormous untapped potential to use smartphones’ unique capabilities for scholarly research. People involved with community science have been at the forefront of this, with projects like eBird and Merlin Bird ID. So I started wondering, how can a smartphone be a platform for humanities research? What would a smartphone-native humanities app look like? What kind of unique affordances could it offer that wouldn’t be possible on a desktop or laptop computer?
I’m the project director for Booksnake, an AR viewer for digitized archival materials. Close engagement with primary sources is foundational to the humanities, and these encounters usually happen in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums—all tightly controlled spaces. Digitization initiatives over the past decade or so have brought millions upon millions of archival primary materials online, making them more accessible to more people than ever before. But trying to interact with digitized materials in a desktop web browser doesn’t even come close to in-person research. It is literally the difference between looking at a picture of something and being in the same room with it. First, everything in a web viewer looks like it’s the same size, so you lose all sense of scale. I’ve often been surprised at the real-world size of something that I’ve first encountered online. Second, web viewers rely on indirect manipulation: To zoom or pan or rotate, you have to repeatedly click and drag, which creates a feeling of friction that isn’t present with in-person research.
Booksnake puts digitized archival materials in the same room with you. It’s a way to bring a digitized map or newspaper or painting, at its real-world size, onto your desk or wall, so you can interact with it as if it were physically present. In doing so, Booksnake uses cutting-edge AR technology to enable a new kind of embodied research that feels deeply familiar—because it is. Booksnake is being built by an interdisciplinary USC team: me (Dornsife), Christy Ye (Cinema), Henry Huang (Viterbi), Curtis Fletcher (Libraries), and Samir Ghosh (Libraries). The project is supported by the Humanities in a Digital World program in USC Dornsife and the Ahmanson Lab in USC Libraries.
In the short term, we’ve only scratched the surface of smartphones as 3D scanners. The LIDAR scanners in recent iPhones and iPads have inspired a wave of apps for scanning objects, rooms, and buildings, apps like Canvas, Metascan, Polycam, and Scaniverse. This technology is amazing, and it’s in your phone! Cultural heritage institutions spent much of the last decade scanning two-dimensional collection items. Over the next decade, I think they’ll start scanning three-dimensional collection items as well, and we’ll need ways to interact with those scanned items.
In the long term, I’m so curious about AR glasses. AR on phones and tablets is cool, but there’s still a level of abstraction and separation between you and your virtual objects, because you have to hold the device itself. I’m hoping that AR glasses make it even easier to suspend disbelief and to directly manipulate virtual objects. Imagine flipping the pages of a digitized newspaper or shuffling through a stack of digitized photographs!
AR is just a tool. It’s most powerful when combined with something else—a problem, a question, a goal. In the big scheme of things, I don’t think anyone really knows what VR or AR or other virtualization technologies are good for, or how they can be most effectively used. We’re all still figuring that out, and that’s a really exciting place to be. If you’re curious about VR and AR as technologies, try them out and learn about their capabilities, but do so with an eye to how they might be particularly useful in some unexpected way, something only you can see.
So much! My AR work is just one branch of my larger research into the history of the North American West. I’m also working on my book project, entitled Ocean Fever: Steam Power, Transpacific Trade, and American Colonization of Puget Sound, and I just finished teaching a new first-year seminar I designed, "Pacific Beaches and the American Imagination."
Personal website: https://seanfraga.com
Project website: https://booksnake.
November 15, 2021
Julia Juliano is a PhD Candidate in Neuroscience working in the Neural Plasticity and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory. Her research focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms behind motor learning in VR and applying these understandings to applications in rehabilitation and health.
Tell us about your background.
I grew up in Phoenix, AZ and attended both Grand Canyon University and Arizona State University where I received BS degrees in Secondary Education in Math and Computational Mathematics. I then went on to teach algebra and geometry to middle schoolers. During this time, I had the opportunity to circumnavigate the globe to research successful math teaching strategies across several countries. This experience helped shape my love for research and showed me the impact that research findings can have in influencing real-world decisions.
I loved my time in the classroom but was continually questioning why certain teaching strategies encouraged learning. I was interested in how factors, such as prior knowledge or stress, affected how much information is retained and I wanted to understand what neural processes facilitated learning. I became involved in a variety of research projects in psychology and neuroscience that looked at how age or chronic stress impacts memory and the hippocampus. Then in 2015, I joined the Neural Plasticity and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory as a research technician. Here I began researching motor learning and neurorehabilitation in VR and continue this research now as a graduate student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program here at USC.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
I have always been excited by new gadgets and technologies and happened to join the Neural Plasticity and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory when the Oculus DK2 was becoming available to developers. After joining NPNL, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to learn to develop in Unity. Soon after, I started working on my first research project in VR comparing motor learning between VR and a computer screen. After finding that motor learning in VR seems to rely on different neural mechanisms, I became really interested in basic science questions related to learning in VR. My hope is that what is learned from answering these questions can be applied to increase the effectiveness of VR applications in rehabilitation and health.
Which of your VR/AR accomplishments are you most excited about?
I am most excited about a study we are currently finishing up which looks at how cognitive load affects the long-term retention and context transfer of VR motor learning. Other work has found that complex skill motor learning in VR increases cognitive load, but it was not clear how this impacts the motor memories. I believe there is much that we do not know about how we learn in VR, and having a foundational understanding of the learning process will only help us to improve the VR applications being developed for rehabilitation and health.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
I am looking forward to seeing the continued development of VR applications in both health care training and health care treatment. I am also excited about the developments in hand tracking integration which have improved substantially over the last few years. As embodiment has important implications for therapies and interventions, this development will hopefully lead to improved patient outcomes among VR application. Lastly, I look forward to seeing the continued positive impacts that these emerging technologies and their applications to health have on people’s lives.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
My first advice is to be willing to try and learn new things, even if they are outside your comfort zone. There are several experiences along my path that I would never have thought I’d be interested in but that have been important to my overall growth as a researcher. Jumping from math education to neuroscience to VR in rehabilitation has given me a unique perspective in my approach to research. And while this path may be winding, I think these experiences can provide a well-rounded education.
My second advice is to find mentors that are willing to invest in your growth. I have been extremely fortunate along my path to find people who have supported and provided me with opportunities that I could not have gotten on my own. Finding mentors that want to provide guidance and assistance that will get you to the next level will be invaluable no matter what path you decide.
Anything you are passionate about aside from AR/VR?
I love to play soccer; I grew up playing the sport, played collegiately, and still try to lace up my boots whenever I can. I also love to travel and experience new places. My other hobbies include swing dancing with my husband, visiting people in need with my therapy dog, and spending time with my family.
October 17, 2021
Laura Garcia, PhD is the Director of Research, Design and Product Innovation at AppliedVR. She shapes the development and evaluation of therapeutic virtual reality (VR) programs for chronic pain. She completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Southern California where she investigated the use of virtual humans for clinical interviewing. Her professional and research focus is on healthcare innovation through immersive technologies.
Tell us about your background.
My life experience has sparked a personal passion for the science of the mind, the pursuit of knowledge about what makes us feel unbalanced or “sick” and that which helps us heal. While getting my Clinical Psychology PhD at USC, I became disillusioned by the many barriers to accessing behavioral medicine, especially for low income and minority communities. I knew that the traditional approaches on which I was trained were insufficient at addressing widespread mental health needs. So I sought out innovative research and training opportunities at the intersection of science, behavioral medicine, and immersive technologies. This led me to Skip Rizzo, who kindly connected me with a research group at the Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT) led by Jonathan Gratch. I collaborated with this team to conduct my dissertation project, which examined how anonymity could impact levels of self-disclosure during clinical interviews with avatars. Simultaneously, I had the opportunity to work closely with Vangelis Lympouridis and his team in designing and prototyping AppliedVR’s programs for pain. This work supported my training in applied research, experience design, and transdisciplinary collaborations. It also gave me the motivation I needed to complete my doctoral studies because I was inspired by the potential of developing therapies that addressed the gaps of traditional methods.
All of these experiences solidified my desire to pursue a career in healthcare innovation. After graduating, I joined AppliedVR’s research team and conducted a clinical trial evaluating EaseVRx–AppliedVR’s therapeutic VR program for chronic pain. I also designed and executed a pilot program that used virtual avatars for social support as an adjunct to EaseVRx. As the Director of Research, Design, and Product Innovation, I am currently working on furthering the company’s scientific foundations for their products by conducting applied and UX research on immersive therapeutics. Additionally, as the principal investigator on an upcoming health economics and outcomes research clinical trial, I direct our research team and external partners in designing, planning, and executing this study.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
As a PhD student who did not entirely feel aligned with the career options offered in clinical psychology, I sought exposure to different horizons. So I joined a couple of Marientina Gotsis’ courses, including a class on interactive entertainment intersections with neuroscience, medicine & public health. It was while taking one of these class sessions that I had my first VR experience. Marientina had asked Vangelis to showcase the technology to her students. I first saw his corded VR headset and was confused by the taped outline on the ground. I then realized the tape was delineating a play area, which would become the reality of the person wearing the headset. He then gave me the headset, and I was amazed at how light it felt compared to what I had imagined would be needed for this technology. While inside the headset, he let me play Tilt Brush by Google. As someone who was not a gamer, I had to play around with the controls quite a bit to make sense of them. This made me a bit embarrassed given that everyone else in the class had had some experience with VR, and I thought they were all watching me play and, well, fail. I was also a bit disillusioned by the fact that I did not see a whole new world in front of me, which was what I expected. I moved on from the feeling and, with curiosity, started to draw out different shapes, forms, and colors. I quickly became engulfed by the process of creating an environment that merged both fire and ice. I felt free to let my creativity loose as it was very easy to erase anything that didn’t feel right or looked like a three-year-old’s drawing, which meant that I erased a lot!
See, in that virtual space it was just me and my creation. I didn't even realize how much time had passed. I quickly stopped caring completely about making a fool of myself, and, in fact, was happily willing to do it. I had forgotten about the real world for just a few minutes and realized that I LOVED painting… in VR of course. Before this experience, I never saw myself as a creative individual, but after, I knew I wanted to become one. Those five minutes not only changed my immediate experience of reality, but they left me motivated to change how I saw myself and seek more creative outlets. I thought of how difficult it was to get myself, and many of my therapy clients, into a similar mental space, and it dawned on me that I had just experienced the power of VR for therapy. This led me to learn as much as I could about it, including visiting ICT for a test run of Bravemind. I would then have great discussions with Marientina about experience design and was honored to be mentored by her. A year after my first VR painting experience, she connected me with Vangelis once again to start my journey at AppliedVR. Vangelis not only showed me the power of VR, but eventually, the team and I were able to harness it together.
Which of your AR/VR accomplishments are you most excited about?
I am most excited about the collaborative work I have facilitated at AppliedVR. When I first joined the team, my role was to bridge the clinical foundations of chronic pain treatment with the design specifications of the different VR experiences that gave life to EaseVRx. After the first clinical evaluation showed the potential of the therapeutic, I worked with Beth Darnall and the design and product teams to make various improvements to EaseVRx, including developing a new prescribed curriculum, drafting new voiceover scripts, and providing feedback during prototyping. At the time, many of our design decisions were based on expertise and intuition. So, I had a great deal of skepticism because we were entering uncharted waters. Fortunately, shortly after defending my dissertation, I joined AppliedVR full-time to evaluate the effectiveness of EaseVRx for the treatment of chronic lower back pain. With very little experience conducting randomized clinical trials, I led a very entrepreneurial and sharp team to successfully run one of the most innovative decentralized clinical trials with an at-home VR treatment. EaseVRx was incredibly effective and this research supported the company’s goals of applying for FDA approval and gaining meaningful evidence for potential commercialization. This research study also gave me the opportunity to analyze quantitative and qualitative data to further our understanding of VR therapy. Thanks to the work of all the individuals who contributed to the development and evaluation of EaseVRx, we can now continue to shape the future of immersive therapeutics, and I feel honored to be a part of it.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
My involvement with AppliedVR has allowed me to learn about the many barriers to commercializing immersive therapeutics, including regulatory, marketing, and the business of healthcare. I hope that we and other companies are able to overcome these barriers so that individuals can gain easy access to VR treatments. Once this happens, I am looking forward to even more development and innovation for a wide-range of conditions. For instance, I would love the implementation of precision medicine in VR so that we can personalize treatments based on an individual's needs. I would also like the integration of wearable and sensor technologies in these therapeutics. I see an exciting future in which we create treatments on a continuum of immersion so that we harness the power of all extended reality (VR, AR, and MR) in addition to that of social agents or avatars. Lastly, I look forward to continuing to understand how immersive therapeutics lead to durable and sustainable outcomes so that we can completely change the way individuals approach their health.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
There are two major insights I can share from my journey pursuing a nontraditional career path at the intersection of multiple disciplines and in healthcare innovation.
1) Trust that you have a unique journey and try not to compare yourself to others.
As a Colombian native who immigrated to the United States during my teens, I often felt out of place. This feeling was present while training to be a clinician and a scientist as well. It was very difficult to engage in such demanding training activities while feeling like an outsider who would often forget her own words. I remember feeling as if I was always behind everyone else. I felt depressed, anxious, and wanted to quit multiple times. I would compare myself to others and regret that I did not have the confidence, clarity, certainty about the future, or even the success that I perceived they had. But, I learned to trust that I had my own unique learning process and journey.
I now realize that feeling out of place only meant that those paths were not my true passion; but they did give me the skills that I would later put to use while doing the work that I do love. I can now say that I feel I am at the right place, at the right time often. I did not plan my path. I could not have even considered all the different people who would play a role in my growth. I just trusted that I was learning something exciting and doing meaningful work for others. I trusted that I was living the path I chose, even if it was significantly different from that of others or not what others deemed successful. I still have to remind myself of that constantly.
2) Discomfort is part of the learning process: Try to listen to it and take action.
I define discomfort here as the feeling of frustration, lack of clarity, helplessness and hopelessness– the feeling of not knowing what I am doing and that I am utterly incompetent. When I’ve felt that way (and I still do sometimes) I remind myself that discomfort is just the consequence of me taking risks– the risks of going into uncharted territory to learn meaningful lessons and skills. So when I feel discomfort, I try to respond with curiosity and ask myself: What can I do now to help myself feel more competent, or less frustrated?
For instance, had I not felt some discomfort with my career choices and asked myself that question, I would not have joined Marientina’s class to learn about experience design or even contacted Skip to start a new research path. Sometimes, the answer was finding something unrelated in which I felt competent. At some point, I had even considered dropping out of my PhD program because of the thought of not being able to do my dissertation project by myself. However, I felt competent while working with Vangelis at AppliedVR and that motivated me to finish my dissertation. Even today, it is this discomfort that leads me to get better at what I do, ask questions, and learn new things. It inspires me to move and to take appropriate actions when the right opportunities come up. It also helps to have encouraging mentors like Todd Maddox, Josh Sackman, and Aaron Robin.
Anything you are passionate about aside from VR/AR?
I love being in nature and watching animals in their natural habitat, so I do lots of hiking, biking, and traveling. It brings me peace, perspective, and health. I love learning, so I watch a lot of documentaries, read or listen to many books, and spend lots of time in the blinkist and storyshots apps. I love spending time with family and traveling with my sisters. I also love ballroom dancing, particularly Latin dance styles like Salsa and Bachata. Learning how to dance has taught me so much about life and who I am and has connected me with amazing individuals who contribute immensely to my life. Lastly, I love writing stories and poetry, though it’s mostly for my own emotional processing, so I keep much of these for myself.
September 20, 2021
Julie Lutz is a recent graduate of the Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate program at the University of Southern California and has played a prominent role in growing the SMART-VR Community. She served as the SMART-VR program manager during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Tell us about your background.
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where I attended Emory University for my undergraduate degree. I started out as a double-major in Political Science and Visual Arts/Art History, which led to my first job at a comics publisher following graduation. I took a turn for seminary school for two years, worked for nearly three years at an education startup, and finally decided to take up occupational therapy for my graduate and doctorate degree here at the University of Southern California.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
The first experience I had with Virtual Reality was during my time in the 2017-2018 Advanced Games Project at USC, where I had joined the One Hand Clapping team as an artist. The project stationed next to ours was creating the puzzle-based virtual reality game Kaisuo, and they lent me their equipment to try VR for the first time.
The game Lone Echo made an incredibly lasting impression on me. During the tutorial, you are placed in a holding pod as the captain of your spaceship floats up and looks into your eyes. I was taken aback by the sensation that my personal space was been invaded, and took a big step away to try and make some distance! The sense of presence that this medium provides was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.
Taking off the headset for the first time was just as perplexing. I was a little let down by the fact that I could no longer float, jettison in midair, or do any number of activities afforded to a robot in outer space. Part of me wonders what we’re up against in the future, particularly when the visuals come to rival reality itself. My hope is that we will handle it with the utmost responsibility, always taking our lives and health in the real world as our first priority.
Which of your AR/VR accomplishments are you most excited about?
Although I have yet to make any contributions to the world of AR/VR in terms of product development or research, I was very excited to have completed my residency with the SMART-VR Center as program manager during my OTD degree. Throughout my time within the community, I learned of so many ways in which this medium has contributed to healthcare and continues to hold such incredible promise for the future.
In terms of interactive media as a whole, my work with the game One Hand Clapping is the most exciting project I have been able to take part in. The main gameplay mechanic surrounds the player’s voice, which can be used to interact with your surroundings and solve puzzles to advance the story. Given that it started as a school project, our team was surprised to have the opportunity to take it into commercial development upon release thanks to the warm reception of our players. I had always hoped to create a game as part of a team someday, and have been so thankful over the past four years to see it come to life in an unexpected way.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
I am so excited to see how Virtual Reality will continue to provide new and improved interventions across a wide range of diagnoses, especially within the realm of mental health. The ability to place the user within a world customized to their needs breaks new ground for exposure therapy, and people who may not be comfortable speaking to a practitioner may find virtual therapists programmed with AI to be an appropriate substitute. The development of digital twins, or virtual reproductions of a patient’s inner anatomy, can also provide incredible insights to improve diagnostic outcomes and successful surgical procedures as well.
More broadly speaking, it will be exciting to observe how VR will continue to offer new avenues for reaching patients who are challenged by geographic or physical limitations. It also provides the means to gather important biometric statistics for practitioners to determine a patient’s progress remotely, which will be an incredible advancement for accessibility.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
Invest in people! The love and support that they provide is like an invisible floor that we walk upon, who make the attainment of our goals possible to begin with. Anyone with whom you share a nurturing relationship should be given priority in your life as much as possible.
Second, find people that possess valuable traits and watch them closely. The person who works dutifully without complaining, the one who communicates their boundaries firmly but gently, those that can set aside their fears to broaden their skill sets or responsibilities – take note and be in their presence as much as possible. It’s hard to become what we can’t see, so learning by example is incredibly important.
Finally, I have been so helped by pursuing literature on specific subjects, whether related to skill-building or personal development as a whole. To have the wisdom of professionals distilled into a portable format that spans only a few hundred pages at our fingertips is truly amazing. Jim Mattis makes the case for reading in a famous quote, stating that “your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” Very well put!
Anything you are passionate about aside from VR/AR?
I’m really into crafting! Crochet, needlework, and sewing have been long-time hobbies of mine. I also really enjoy working with glass, particularly micro mosaics and stained glass projects. Jewelry making is something I like to dabble in every once in a while, as well.
Vintage clothing is another big hobby, and I enjoy thrifting on the weekends. There is a vibrant secondhand scene here in LA, and it’s the perfect place to find hidden gems that can be given a new life. It also feels great to contribute to sustainable clothing resources rather than mass-produced fashion as our primary option.
The biggest tug-of-war in terms of passions has to come from drawing, which has always been a labor of love. I always feel a bit unsettled if I am not making progress in this respect, however small.
To learn more about Julie Lutz, follow her on Twitter at @JulieLutzOT!
August 6, 2021
Dr. Michael Zyda is the Founding Director of USC's Computer Science Games Program, a Professor of Engineering Practice in the USC department of Computer Science, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the USC SMART-VR Center.
Tell us about your background.
I was born during Hurricane Edna in Eastorange, New Jersey, and that’s how life got started for me! I moved around a bit during my childhood, finally settling down in Porter Ranch, California. My biggest hobby throughout high school was acting, where I took classes with a wonderful instructor who taught many talented actors and actresses, such as Val Kilmer, Kevin Spacey, and Mare Winningham. When the time to move on to undergraduate school came around, I had yet to determine what my focus in life should be. With that in mind, I enrolled at UC San Diego – not only was it a wonderful school, but the location was right by the beach as well! It was the best of both worlds for an undecided student.
The journey to choose a major was a long one, starting with mathematics, then Spanish literature, and then ultimately applied mechanics and engineering sciences/bioengineering. Throughout this time, I began to take an interest in creating computer-animated films as well and sought the help of one of our school’s professors. He agreed to help so long as I could answer three questions – was I willing to learn to program a computer? Was I wiling to learn how to create computer graphics? And finally, was I willing to learn how to write grant proposals? This would become a opportunity to experience many important firsts throughout my time as an undergraduate student. With his help, I completed my first grant proposal, my first published academic paper, and created an original film that would be featured at the first computer graphics film festival in 1973.
The biggest turning point in my education came when I responded to an ad in my school newspaper for a film editor. The man who placed the ad, Dr. Kent R. Wilson, was a physical chemistry professor, and was in search of a student for his laboratory research as well. I had a wonderful time working with some incredibly bright individuals there, such as Bud Tribble and Bill Atkinson, the designer of the Hypercard and MacPaint for the original Macintosh computer. His creation would go on to make history in the world of technology!
My time in Dr. Wilson’s laboratory gave me a deep appreciation of the world of physical chemistry, and I would use my study nights in his office as an opportunity to learn more about the subject. Among his books were references about neuroscience as well, which was what ultimately got me on track for my final choice of major, which was bioengineering. Upon graduating, I enrolled at UMASS Amherst as a master’s student to join the Center for Systems Neuroscience underneath professor Andy Bartow. He was a joy to work with, and an incredible mind in his field. He would go on to work with Richard Sutton to invent reinforcement learning, a core part of machine learning today.
After graduating, I was accepted at Washington University of St. Louis to begin a double-PhD program in physiology/biophysics and computer science. After taking classes alongside the medical students for two years, I had the realization that I’d be in school until my fifties if I didn’t make a focused decision for my schooling! At that point, I decided to set my sights on a PhD in Computer Science. During my time in that program, I helped to create a startup called Tripos Associates, which is a computational modeling company. It is still going strong, to my great surprise.
I took my experience following the PhD program to the Naval Postgraduate School in 1984. At that time in the computer graphics field, photorealistic rendering was the biggest focus of our endeavors. It took seven days to capture one frame given the technological constraints at the time, and I wanted to pour my studies into something that could yield greater efficiency. To this end, I was able to purchase a Silicon Graphics Workstation, which could handle up to 500 triangles per frame – a great feat at the time. This served as the foundation of a class I developed on game design, where I could challenge my students through the use of project-based learning. Many of the military students who enrolled for this course went on to develop exciting additions to our operations within the Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Department of Defense as a whole.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
I had my first exposure to Virtual Reality during my time at the Naval Postgraduate School, where I was asked to build a network visual simulation system. With the help of my students and our Silicon Graphics Workstation, we were able to develop a simulator for the FOG-M missile system being tested by the US Army. Following its success, we took things further and turned our invention into a network simulator the following year. While presenting our work at SIGGRAPH that year, someone took notice of the similarities between our work and SIMNET, a project funded by DARPA. They were searching for someone that could help develop some of its technical aspects, and we were glad to contribute. We worked together to build a simulator that could interact with SIMNET, synthesize the information it gathered, and summarize the most important aspects to the user. This endeavor ended up providing us with an additional decade’s worth of research funding, which made many more projects possible. It was a provision we were incredibly grateful for and were able to bring it to its early virtual reality stages from that point onward.
Which of your VR/AR accomplishments are you most excited about?
Continuing with our work on SIMNET in its initial virtual reality stage, our first iterations included some exciting technological advancements for its time. This involved a $6,000 headset with a 320/220 resolution, coupled with the first networked virtual environment, in which interaction with one’s surroundings was made possible by a fully instrumented bodysuit. Thanks to an amazing team and the opportunity to present our work to Anita Jones, the Director of Defense Research & Engineering at the time, we were able to put this project together within a very short timeframe. To our great relief, she very much enjoyed our work, and her support gave our project the opportunity to be recognized more broadly. It also provided the groundwork for the publication of a well-regarded text, Networked Virtual Environments, which was co-authored with Sandeep Singhal, who was a joy to collaborate with. He has since gone on to accomplish many exciting things, most recently becoming the director of Cloud operations for Google and Facebook.
Our book ended up being utilized mainly by game developers who wished to apply network infrastructures to their own endeavors, which opened up a new window into the gaming industry. This book, along with many insightful connections made by developers who applied its information to their game projects, eventually became the foundation of what would become the Games Program at USC.
Tying into the debut of the program, the final project I worked on at the Naval Postgraduate School was both a valued accomplishment as well as the final impetus for bringing the program to life. This was the development of an online game called America’s Army, which had been requested for use as a recruiting tool by the United States Army. As it grew to become one of the most-played games of its time, it became the epicenter of an unfortunate game of tug-of-war surrounding resources for its development. This ultimately resulted in the diminishing of our fully-functioning AAA team down to a group of only six developers within a single day. As great a disappointment as it was, it became the motivation for me to direct my passion for development from the commercial world to the educational world. I reached out to Max Nikias, who was serving as the Dean of Engineering at USC during that time, and told him I’d be there in a heartbeat if he’d let me have a shot at bringing this idea for a game development program to life. I began organizing its foundations in January 2005, and by June 2006 we were officially offering a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science (Games) within the USC Viterbi Engineering School as well as a Masters in Computer Science (Game Development).
That being said, I consider my work with the founding of the USC Games program to be the most rewarding accomplishment. Over 3,000 of our student graduates have been sent into jobs all over the gaming industry, which has been absolutely wonderful to see. At the time the department was being developed in 2005, the games industry was similar to film in terms of revenue. It has since increased to nearly six times that, with exponential growth. At some point, I would love to take the program further with a cross-disciplinary effort that provides artists with an opportunity to develop their skills with a view toward the field as well. We currently have partnerships with the School of Cinematic Arts and have received assistance from other universities to meet this important need within games, but it would be incredible to source our work right within USC. Further application of this idea this would involve the development of assets specific to medical use, similar to what Stanford has done with their Human Perception Laboratory.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR & AR that you’re especially looking forward to?
There is a topic I’ve been very excited for during my work as an editor for an upcoming issue of the Frontiers in Virtual Reality Journal, which surrounds the development of Modern 3D. This involves the up-and-coming practice of displaying Virtual Reality content without the need for head-mounted displays. Consider a setup that involves the use of an iPad tablet with stereo sound and tracking, coupled with the use of a lightweight tracker worn on the head and another tracker on the display screen. The display could be used as a something of a window into another the virtual world, much like we first envisioned back in 1965. This helps to solve an enduring problem within Virtual Reality, as I’ve noticed over the years that most players don’t want to keep an HMD on for an extended period. Conducting VR without the use of a bulky and limited headset can help with the issue of discomfort immensely, and greatly increase the engagement of users.
Another possible method along these lines would involve a simple setup of stereo projectors and active shutter glasses, with both devices tracking alongside one another. This could serve as an affordable and effective solution to a long-standing issue. I am currently in the process of conducting research surrounding this method with some of my co-editors from the journal, and it has been a wonderful experience to collaborate with researchers and talent from around the world in pursuit of taking this technology further.
I also anticipate important developments in the area of Virtual Reality in the service of doctors and healthcare workers. As it stands, the current technology at their disposal is not the most practical. Most professionals would prefer to look directly at their screens without any virtual immersion, and current developments within XR and Augmented Reality would suit their purposes much more for the time being. For example, a graphic overlay using AR could provide further information to practitioners as they view their environments within the real world. A doctor providing a laparoscopic surgery could use sensors to procure a 3D model of the patient’s anatomy, which could be immensely helpful.
It will be exciting to see what the future of sensor development holds as well, as they are a key -part of what will bring XR to greater heights. I am a collaborator with Stanford Medical School’s Human Perception Laboratory, where I have worked to help build their plan for the adaptation of biometric sensors and machine learning to distill the human physical and emotional states. Not only can this help within a medical application, but the advancement of machine learning as a whole can greatly contribute to the development and use of virtual humans across a broad range of needs. One area that could particularly use their assistance is the realm of mental health, where this sort of technology could do a great deal to monitor and treat the well-being of its users. For instance, they can learn about a person’s typical habits and personality, which can provide helpful cues when they fall out of character – almost like having a virtual friend. They can know valuable information about you as an individual, which is incredibly important.
At the moment, I’ve been really excited about the AR/VR SCI 538 class we’ve been offering as of late, which I’ve been teaching with superstar Vangelis Lympouridis. It got put into hiatus due to COVID, so we’re incredibly excited for things to get back on track next semester in person. I’ve also been applying Virtual Reality research toward the topic of physical performance with Khizer Khaderi, MD, who recently began working at Stanford. It’s been wonderful to see all the ways in which immersive technology continues to advance the world of healthcare.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
I like to tell people that it’s incredibly important to consider your long-term journey with whatever you choose to do. This applies not only to your accomplishments on a technical level, but also to the people whom you meet along the way. Make sure to stay in touch with those you meet, especially those who are skilled within multiple domains. I greatly value the input of my friends and the many ways in which they enrich my own development and research. I have one friend that’s great for bouncing new ideas off of, while another is a fantastic inventor of new gaming technology. One creates numerous start-ups per year, and I thoroughly enjoy being an advisor to people such as him. These sorts of people are always doing something fun, are incredibly smart, and overall interesting to be around. Do your best to cultivate and maintain friendships with people who energize and motivate you!
Anything you are passionate about aside from AR/VR?
I enjoy creating art in my free time and am a big fan of the iPad application Procreate. Much of it is abstract, as I have no formal training and do it mostly as a way to relax. I’m particularly drawn to bright and vivid palettes, along with any combination of colors that can draw feelings of excitement from the viewer.
Traveling to see my family is also a favorite activity of mine, as we are all spread out across a few different cities these days. I spend my time here in Downtown LA while teaching at USC, and during the weekends I’ll travel back home to be with my wife in Carmel, whom I’ve been married to since 1974. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been able to be with her full-time, which has been wonderful. She’s been an incredible support to me while teaching over Zoom. My son is in Redwood City, and my daughter also lives at our home in Carmel.
Keeping in touch with my students and watching the work they create in the field is also incredibly rewarding for me. I keep an ongoing photo album using the digital picture frame on my desk, which helps me stay current on their names and the games each of them worked on during their time in the USC Games program. I’m always looking forward to the annual USC Games Expo, which is a wonderful display of how far the students have come throughout their studies each year.
Going forward, at some point, my career goal is to become a member of the National Academy of Engineering. What I ultimately enjoy more than anything is creating fun things and having a wonderful time throughout the process.
To learn more about Dr. Michael Zyda, follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @mikezyda. To learn more about the USC Games Program, you can visit the official website at https://games.usc.edu/.
June 10, 2021
Garrett Flynn is an interdisciplinary senior at the University of Southern California, pursuing a BS in Computational Neuroscience, an Honors in Multimedia Scholarship, and an MA in Cinematic Arts (Media Arts, Games, and Health).
Tell us about your background.
I was born and raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, leaving before my senior year in high school to pursue a B.S. in Computational Neuroscience at USC. I began undergraduate research at Hires Lab where we used optogenetics to understand the neural circuits underlying tactile sensation—though later transitioned to the USC Center for Neural Engineering (CNE) to work on their hippocampal prosthesis to restore memory function in dementia. While I initially worked on the prediction of memory content from recorded brain data, I put this project on hiatus to focus on the human-centered design of brain stimulation technologies. In collaboration with the Goering Lab at the University of Washington, this led to an NIH Administrative Supplement to gather the perspectives of patients implanted with hippocampal prostheses and individuals with low-level cognitive decline on cognitive brain stimulation.
Adjacent to these pursuits, I was also preparing for a capstone project for the Digital Studies minor at the School of Cinematic Arts. Supported by the Ahmanson Lab and the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, I convened a student working group to create interactive media informed by real-time brain data. And as a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, this eventually developed into Brains@Play: an international research collective organized with Marientina Gotsis, Dong Song, and Dimitris Grammenos to encourage the responsible design and development of multi-user brain-responsive experiences.
The biggest lesson of my interdisciplinary journey at USC was the real need for accessible neurotechnology media. As such, I decided to continue my education as an M.A. student in the Media Arts, Games, and Health program where I’m working on an open-source software library/platform for developing and distributing biosignal-responsive applications on web browsers.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
Early in my high school years, I had a chance encounter with Neuromancer: a well-known cyberpunk novel that features full-dive virtual reality accessed via neural implants. While I decided to pursue neuroscience rather than AR/VR, I’ve never lost touch with my fascination with the immersive virtual experiences described by this work of science fiction.
Which of your VR/AR accomplishments are you most excited about?
Surprise, I have yet to develop my first VR/AR application! Nonetheless, I’ll gladly acknowledge the four wonderful submissions we received for the VR + Neurotech + Health category of the 2021 Brains and Games International Design Fiction Competition, hosted by Brains@Play and sponsored by the USC SMART-VR Center (among many others). It was truly inspiring to see the passion that each team brought to the problem of designing future-looking VR applications that improve health outcomes for users by incorporating brain data.
On the other hand, I’ll be bringing the Brains@Play team in full force to the XR Brain Jam this month. So stay tuned.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR and health that you’re especially looking forward to?
At first glance, I’ve been very excited by ongoing commercial projects at the intersection of neurotechnology and AR/VR. OpenBCI, Tobii, and Valve recently announced a project to integrate a wide range of biometric sensing capabilities into the Galea headset. Additionally, Facebook is developing an EMG-based armband to control VR environments. Both of these projects highlight the increasing feasibility of incorporating biometric data into (even more) aspects of everyday lives. Even beyond privacy and security, however, these developments bring up ethical issues related to access. Who will be able to afford these technologies? And even if you can afford them, will they work for everyone?
In this sense, I’ll admit I’m most excited about efforts to reduce the barriers to participating in the current generation of AR/VR experiences—much less next-generation commercial devices that divert resources from broader access.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
Actively seek out opportunities to work with people outside of your discipline. Having stumbled my way into countless interdisciplinary projects during my undergraduate years, I can truthfully say that each was an extremely rewarding and formative experience. In this vein, the most reliable way I’ve found to start making these connections is to reach out to people whose work interests you—even before you feel that you know enough to have an intelligent conversation! While I still get stuck in loops of procrastination for the sake of preparation, I’ve rarely had a negative experience meeting to chat about someone’s life work. As long as you’re willing to lean into new responsibilities, this first meeting is likely to grow into something beautiful that neither of you could’ve originally imagined!
Anything you are passionate about aside from AR/VR?
As I’m quite an obsessive person, I rarely engage with something unless I’m willing to put my heart and soul into it. Since March 2021, I’ve been focused on the creation of a browser-based brain-computer interface (BCI) system usable by anyone with a brain, including those with severe motor deficits as well as healthy end-users. With our two-person team working around the clock, we’ve received immense excitement from research groups working with pediatric populations with cerebral palsy and adults with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. So it seems the work has only just begun.
You can follow Garrett Flynn at his website, garrettflynn.com, or via Twitter at @garrettmflynn. Stay current on upcoming events and activities with Brains@Play via their official website and Twitter account, @brainsatplay.
April 4, 2021
Dr. Sook-Lei Liew is the principal investigator of the Neural Plasticity and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory at the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy.
Tell us about your background.
I grew up in Plano, Texas and was a pretty shy, quirky kid who really loved learning new things, homemade science experiments like making “perfume” from my mom’s flower bed, and creative school assignments, especially anything involving dioramas or funny skits.
For undergraduate, I double-majored in English (because I loved reading) and Kinesiology (Sports Medicine; because I loved exercising and being active). However, I did not really understand the connection between my college major and how it related to getting a job after college, so my senior year I took a career test, which suggested I become a farmer or an occupational therapist. I didn’t know what occupational therapy was, but I looked it up online and landed on USC’s page describing occupational therapy as a profession where you get to help people do what’s important to them by being creative. I was sold! I did my masters in occupational therapy at USC, and learned about neuroscience there. I was fascinated by the brain-behavior relationships I was learning, so volunteered in the lab of an OT professor whose research was in neuroscience. I loved it so much, I ended up staying and doing my PhD in occupational science with a focus on cognitive neuroscience, where I gained expertise in measuring brain activity using brain imaging. After that, I wanted to connect the cognitive neuroscience research skills I had learned back with my clinical background, so did my postdoc in neurorehabilitation at the NIH. During this time, I also had the opportunity to visit a few different research labs at the University of Tuebingen and Johns Hopkins. Through all of these experiences, I learned more about ways to modulate brain activity in people with stroke using neurofeedback and brain stimulation, which ultimately formed the foundation for what I’d start to do as a faculty member at USC.
What sparked your interest in AR/VR?
In 2015, my now-husband and I moved to USC, and my husband started working with VR for his job, so I learned about it from him. VR had just become commercially available, and I purchased my first VR headset (Oculus Rift DK2) for my lab to try out. I had already been working with brain computer interfaces and neurofeedback from my postdoc, but a constant problem was the lack of engagement of the neurofeedback presentation (e.g., usually a pong game on a computer screen or thermometer). VR offered possibilities for much more immersive and embodied neurofeedback, so we started integrating it with our brain computer interface system.
Which of your VR/AR accomplishments are you most excited about?
I am excited about all of our VR work!
The work that gets the most attention is our brain computer interface with VR (REINVENT), and I am excited about the future of this project, especially now that we have patent-pending status for it and have lately published more research suggesting it can really help some people with stroke improve the neural pathways responsible for motor control. I am also really happy that our participants so far seem to really like using it. We have worked a lot this past year to make it even more user-friendly and engaging for patients, so we are excited to get it into the hands of people who need it.
I am also excited about the basic science work we are doing to try to understand how to brain learns in virtual reality and whether skills learned in VR transfer to the real world or not. We sometimes joke that these experiments are “the most boring use of virtual reality” but in actuality, they are so critical for learning how our brains interpret virtual environments, and which brain processes are the same or different in virtual reality. This is really important especially if our ultimate goal is to train people to learn skills or rehabilitation in virtual reality, since we need to know that what they learn in VR will transfer back to their real lives. We’ve made some headway in this area and are about to conduct a few more exciting experiments this upcoming year.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR and health that you’re especially looking forward to?
I am most looking forward to improvements in the VR technology itself. A VR headset that is easy to use, reliable, has great graphics, and doesn’t require a tethered connection will really change the game for how we can use it moving forward. I think the field is definitely getting there but I look forward to continued improvements.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path as yours?
I think in any career, it’s super important to know what drives/motivates you, and make sure that what you’re doing is in alignment with those underlying motivations so that you can really love and be passionate about it.
I think my biggest motivators are: (1) to help others, (2) to continually learn, and (3) to be creative. While there are definitely other ways that I could help others (e.g., as a clinical OT which I would also love), one thing that I especially appreciate about this job is the ability to always learn new things (and to actually generate new knowledge through our research!) and to be creative and come up with new ideas and solutions to problems. I would encourage others to think deeply about what is most important to them and find career paths that align with those values.
Anything you enjoy doing for fun, or are passionate about aside from AR/VR?
I love running (especially trail running) and hiking, reading science fiction and fantasy books, cooking, watching every streaming service, and eating fast food/fried foods. I also love hanging out with my husband and other friends and family (especially if hanging out with them is combined with one of the above).
March 23, 2021
Brandon Birckhead is a VR healthcare researcher and psychiatry resident at Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in implementing self-administered virtual therapeutics in remote clinical trials.
Tell us about your background.
I was born in Hendersonville, TN, a town just north of Nashville. After considering engineering for my undergraduate degree, I decided to study biology with the goal of becoming a doctor instead. I was accepted to the Mayo Clinic for medical school, and was on track to complete a residency within radiation oncology upon graduating. It was at this point in my academic journey that I had my first encounter with Virtual Reality, which brought about an unexpected change in my career path. After that transformative experience, I decided to switch my focus to immersive therapeutics research, which brought me to Cedars-Sinai. After spending three years with their amazing team, I recently made the decision to return to residency to complete my medical training, which will bring me to Johns Hopkins for a new chapter over the next three years as a psychiatry resident.
What sparked your interest in VR/AR?
I’ve always had an interest in technology since I was young, but not until my time in medical school did it develop into something more substantial. I was given the opportunity to work with start-ups focused on web development for physicians, similar to a digital version of the Yellow Pages. Throughout my work with that project, alongside others not long afterward, I was exposed to the revolution in healthcare and technology that was beginning to take off at the time. I was excited to find that my interest in this aspect of medicine remained strong, given that I’d struggled to find my niche within the more traditional routes available to healthcare students up to that point. From then on, I began to seriously consider how I might be able to incorporate technology into my future work as a practitioner.
Things finally came together at a VR event I attended through Meetup.com, where I was able to have my first go at the Oculus Rift Developer’s Kit back in 2016. The first game I tried out placed a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the end of a long hallway and the player at the other, giving no other option than to watch it come bounding straight toward you. Although I was well aware that it was only a game, my subconsciousness couldn’t quite shake off the fear that comes with an entire T-Rex headed your way! I recall being so immersed in the moment that I felt as though I could sense the dinosaur’s breath as it came close. It was as though my imagination was thoroughly convinced and working to fill in the gaps on its own! It made for an incredible first experience, to say nothing of a lasting impression. I went home and began researching VR’s involvement in the medical world on PubMed, and was surprised to find over 1,000 papers from research dating back over two decades already. It was incredibly exciting to have found both a technical and creative outlet that could be applied to my studies in healthcare, and I’ve set my sights on VR research ever since.
Which of your professional accomplishments are you most excited about?
The work that I’ve been participating in at Cedars-Sinai under my previous boss, Brennan Spiegel, has definitely been some of the most exciting work in VR that I’ve taken in part in thus far. Before I came on board, he had been trailblazing the use of VR for the alleviation of pain with RCTs in the inpatient setting. I joined in right as he had started a clinical study on therapeutic VR in the patients home. This development would open up a world of possibilities for treatment, as digital interventions could begin to be prescribed and self-administered asynchronously in the comfort of one’s own home. By the time COVID had come around, we had been studying remote research for two years, which made our work all the more important in a time where telehealth and remote research became a critical form of communication. We are one of the few sites supported by the NIH’s HEAL initiative that has been able to continue researching to reduce pain and opiates, given that it can be administered remotely – something we are incredibly thankful for.
The progress we’ve seen so far, especially in a situation that put our work to the test, gives me much hope for the future of this medium going forward. Novel methods for asynchronous content aimed at mental health and pain reduction have recently become more accessible thanks to mobile apps, and our current work with VR serves to bring those benefits even further. It’s been incredible to be part of the process through constructing methods and building surveys for conducting future studies, and I’m very excited to learn about both future results and subsequent breakthroughs that this information can lead us toward in the future.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR and health that you’re especially looking forward to?
Picking only one is pretty tough! I’ll go with the top three on my laundry list, with a scenario to help bring them all together. Say that we have a patient struggling with multiple issues at once, such as relapse from addiction alongside a traumatic past experience. Although they may wish to receive professional treatment for these important needs, the stigma surrounding mental health may prevent them from taking the initiative to begin their journey toward healing. There could also be common environmental barriers to consider as well, such as issues surrounding transportation or inconvenient clinic locations. Thankfully, VR has the potential to address all of these needs at once. Consider the recent development of the social media platform VR Chat, where users can join a social network anonymously and interact with other players remotely. It would be incredible to see this concept used as a basis for administering therapy, providing both greater ease of accessibility alongside the option of anonymity for the patient. In addition, building a custom environment tailored toward a patient’s needs can be made easier than ever with the help of advancements in technology. Although building a convincing world is expensive and time-consuming in VR at the time, we’re already beginning to see incredible progress with the quality and speed at which this can now be done. I believe the day will come where a client can simply describe their memories for an AI to recreate, which is an area of research currently known as Precision VR. The patient would have the ability to interact with a world that holds deep personal meaning to make purposeful changes, which can then translate into real-world results. To sum it all up – anonymity, precision VR, and social VR! I’m excited to watch all three of these come together to make mental healthcare more effective and accessible in what I hope will be the near future.
Taking the matter of personal interaction a bit further, I’m also looking forward to technological advancements within embodiment therapy for treating patients. Embodiment therapy involves the action of a player taking “ownership” of a virtual humanoid avatar. This would include full body tracking, along with synchronous stimuli from auditory, visual, and haptic stimulation from the real world. There’s been a lot of great research from laboratories across the globe on the efficacy of this treatment, and the results so far have shown incredibly strong outcomes that persist up to six months past the intervention. As many recent developments in digital mental health treatment have the ability to be administered through various mediums, such as cell phones, embodiment therapy is an experience unique to VR. Although we’re quite some time away from receiving approval for such an involved method of remote research, it’s exciting to know that we’re heading in that direction as software advances and hardware becomes more sophisticated and affordable. It’ll be a wonderful era of AI PhDs and VR PhDs, along with many other disciplines, coming together to make something incredible to benefit humanity!
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
I think this would depend upon what direction a potential VR researcher might like to take as they work to build their career. For instance, if you feel passionately about the ability to personally administer treatment in a clinical setting, passing through the rigor of medical school and residency would be a requirement. However, If you instead prefer to have a greater hand in the development of trials, taking a more academic route with a PhD would be a better choice. If you find that you’re not inclined toward either of those options, however, there are still plenty of ways to become involved in the vast world of VR research. My advice in this case would be to work hard toward becoming proficient in a hard skill. For instance, get very comfortable with coding or find opportunities to gather experience with data science. Furthermore, there will be a need to develop some level of understanding with such skills in an effective team as it is. Although I’m mostly involved with the medical side of things, it’s still necessary to work hard at educating myself in these disciplines with the help of my teammates. As my role is that of a middleman responsible for bridging together statisticians and clinical trialists, the more I’m able to understand and “speak” their languages, the better it is for our team. Putting in the time and dedication to develop these skills is of utmost importance, especially since there aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to important topics such as these. All in all, knowing how you’d like to be involved and diving head first into that area of specialization is the key.
Becoming more experienced with the art of collaboration is also another important part of the picture to work on, no matter what discipline you’re coming from. No one is an expert at everything, and it’s inevitable that you’ll need quite a lot of help in any given research project. As part of the collaborative process, you’ll be tasked with finding people who know those different areas best. If you can find a champion – someone who puts great effort into their topic, works well with others, and expresses dedication to the cause – do everything you can to hold on to them! USC is a great place for finding such people, both at the ITC as well as the very multi-academic ecosystem that the university offers.
Anything you are passionate about, aside from AR/VR?
I’ve developed a big interest in the podcast and blog spheres throughout the pandemic, and I enjoy what effective mediums they are for learning. I’ve begun following a few in psychiatry in particular, as that’s the field I’ll be heading into for my residency. Ive decided to do my own podcast on the intersection of immersive technology and psychiatry. It is called “immersive psychiatry” and it will be on spotify, itunes, and google podcast. It would be much like what we’ve discussed here, but in greater detail. It’ll be a great pet project to look forward to in the future!
To learn more about Brandon and his work, follow him on Twitter at @bjbirckhead.
February 26, 2021
Dr. Judy Pa is an Associate Professor of Neurology at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute with the Keck School of Medicine at USC. She also serves as director of The Pa Laboratory, where she researches the effects of Virtual Reality on the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's Disease.
Tell us about your background.
I was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV, the town that never sleeps. When I left Las Vegas to attend undergrad at UC Irvine, I went into culture shock when restaurants and stores closed at 9PM. Where would I get a late-night bowl of pho?
I knew I wanted to study human behavior from the age of 14, because I was fascinated by how the mind worked. During my junior year in undergrad, my fascination for the mind became forever linked to the physical properties of the brain when I took Dr. Kourosh Saberi’s Sensation and Perception class. I’ve not looked back since.
What sparked your interest in VR/AR?
Our lab is grounded in Alzheimer’s prevention trials and ways to improve brain health. Moving beyond our epidemiological understanding of how risk factors relate to Alzheimer’s disease, we aim to discover novel ways to treat risk. Through the passion and dedication of a PhD student in our lab, Ashwin Sakhare, and a team of creative minds, we embarked on a new journey into VR back in 2017 in which health meets technology meets neuroscience. 3 years later, we have a promising and clever design that we are testing in a funded NIH clinical trial. Whew, it’s been quite the ride!
Which of your professional accomplishments are you most excited about?
For our VR work, I’m most proud of the team of dedicated students, staff, and faculty who have come together for a common goal – to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. The interdisciplinary approach of our project required many different views and expertise to get this far in a few short years. I am grateful to everyone who’s hands have touched our project, whether for a short summer rotation or a longer years stay. Hopefully, our project will make an impact on the field of brain health and Alzheimer’s prevention.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR and health that you’re especially looking forward to?
We are in an exciting time for the coupling between VR and health. With a push towards novel forms of treatment and prevention, more studies are gaining momentum and recognition for their promise of improving lives. From Dr. Rizzo’s BraveMind project for PTSD to Dr. Liew’s REINVENT project for stroke to Dr. Finley’s Overcome project for Parkinson’s disease, it’s becoming more and more recognized that VR/AR holds much promise for healthcare.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
I don’t know what advice I can give to those who want to follow a similar path. But honestly, at the end of the day, if you aren’t jumping out of bed to get to work and loving what you do, then it might be time to re-evaluate. Time is something we will never get back (unless you’re Dr. Strange).
Anything you are passionate about, aside from AR/VR?
When I’m not working, I love walking in nature and enjoying the views. Oh, and hanging out with my kids. Yep, you can be both a mom and a tenured professor-scientist!
February 8, 2021
Dr. James Finley is the director of the Locomotor Control Laboratory at USC, investigating the control and adaptation of locomotion within healthy and injured neuromuscular systems.
Tell us about your background.
I’m originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee and lived there until I moved to Tallahassee, Florida to attend Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. I’d always loved cars and I wanted to optimize them for performance using engineering and design principles, so the choice to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering was a straightforward one. I was set in my decision until my sophomore year, when an internship at a biomedical engineering company opened up a new world of possibilities to me. I had a chance to observe the role engineering plays in improving society’s health and quality of life, which became a major turning point in my education. The type of biomedical engineering that most interested me was not a part of my undergraduate curriculum, so I decided to pursue my newfound interest through graduate education. I was later accepted into a PhD program at Northwestern University, where I could work toward two dreams at once – becoming both a biomedical engineer and a professor to guide budding scientists and engineers in the field.
During that time, I also developed an interest in neuromechanics, especially surrounding the brain and nervous system’s role in guiding human movement. Understanding how the brain processed information about the body’s mechanics and one’s environment while walking was most intriguing to me. Further along my post-doctoral fellowship, I became exposed to the idea of using virtual reality as a way to manipulate visual information. This tool held the promise of driving genuine change in walking patterns, which I was eager to take further in my studies. Since then, virtual reality has remained a key component of my research in numerous ways. Not only has it been valuable to better understand the mechanisms of control and learning, but also as a modality to implement new interventions for rehabilitation.
What sparked your interest in VR/AR?
During my graduate years, I first learned about and participated in studies that used virtual reality as a means to better understand the effect of visual information on a person’s balance. Thankfully, I was exposed to studies like these through the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois – Chicago, and I was greatly able to benefit from these formative experiences. I went from being a spectator of VR development to an active participant when I attended a Society for Neuroscience conference back in 2013. It was there that I experienced the first publicly-available Oculus development kit, which became a real game-changer for my studies. I was amazed that we now had the ability to create such compelling VR experiences with a 360° headset, and immediately made the choice to purchase one. I ended up using this device during my early years at USC to develop my own assessments and interventions, and have kept going with VR ever since!
Which of your professional accomplishments are you most excited about?
Our laboratory, the Locomotor Control Lab, received a grant in 2016 from the NIH to develop a VR-based mobility training application for individuals with Parkinson’s Disease. At the time, this was relatively uncharted territory – while numerous publications exist for this topic with the use of a treadmill, we would be among the first to develop research specifically aimed at over-ground walking. In addition to that, few VR studies allowed participants the freedom to turn, negotiate obstacles, or manipulate items with their hands. Over the span of two years, we were able to break considerable ground in this area with the help of many talented minds here at USC. Our interdisciplinary team included experts such as Beth Fisher from the Division of Biokinesiolgy and Physical Therapy, Marientina Gotsis in Cinematic Arts, and Vangelis Lympourdis from Cinema and Computer Science, among others. We put our heads together to create a custom application using the HTC Vive, which we then administered to participants with Parkinson’s Disease with the help of their physical therapists. Our work was recently accepted for publication under the title “Design and Development of a Virtual Reality-Based Mobility Training Game for People with Parkinson’s Disease”, made available by Frontiers in Neurology* as an open-access publication.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR and health that you’re especially looking forward to?
Something I’d love to see in the near future would be an expanded field-of-view within Augmented Reality. While current advancements in technology have made VR the best method for our studies at the present time, our ability to render features in the environment during over-ground walking in real time has room for improvement. As long as we close participants off from seeing their external environment, there will be limits to the depth of research we can conduct. This issue could stand to be greatly enhanced with the help of AR in the future. If we could project virtual objects in one’s real-world environment, particularly in a way that doesn’t limit their focus to a constrained area of view, so many more possibilities would become available to us. The development of this technology will inevitably create many more opportunities to take this line of study further, especially if patients are easily able to incorporate this technology into the comfort of their own homes.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
I’d say the biggest piece of advice I have to offer would be to be aware of your own ignorance, and seek outside expertise when appropriate. At the very least, come to the point where you can wisely acknowledge your weaker points. This will help you know where to begin looking for those who can complement your strengths accordingly. When it comes to the study of Virtual Reality, many will excitedly dive in with the belief that they have all they need to develop compelling and useful applications, because the barrier to entry has become much lower in recent years. There is still a wealth of experience and information to be gained from people who have used VR in their research for many decades, and this knowledge wouldn’t otherwise be apparent to the average engineer or physical therapist just getting started. Finding and working with people who have this level of expertise has been a wonderful and immensely helpful experience for me, especially as they teach you to speak the same language and get up to speed. Do your best to find those whom you work well with, whom you can trust, and that are willing to teach you the things you’ll need to know. Having this kind of help makes the journey much more interesting and enjoyable in the long run!
Anything you are passionate about, aside from AR/VR?
Most people who know me know that running and cycling are a big part of my life. I’ll head out on a run on the streets or trails or go biking anywhere from three to four times a week. The nature around here in Pasadena is beautiful, and it’s a great place to live if you want to escape to the mountains or forests for a quieter pace every once in a while. Spending time with my wife and children is one of my biggest enjoyments in life, as well! I have three children, and the weekends are always filled with new activities to help them discover their personal interests and learn more about the world around them. One of the most interesting balancing acts as a parent has to do with helping your child uncover new passions while fostering established skills toward obtaining mastery. One thing for sure is that life as a parent is incredibly fun, and there’s never a boring moment!
February 2, 2021
We recently launched our first SMART-VR Community Showcase, featuring all the latest developments from researchers and developers within the SMART-VR Center. Five projects were displayed, featuring:
- Dr. Skip Rizzo with BRAVEMIND: A Soldier’s Tale: Targeting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder using VR as a technologically-advanced immersion therapy intervention (YouTube: Talk / Demo)
- Dr. James Finley with Achelios VR/Wordplay VR: Replicating the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment test) to determine cognitive and visual impairments related to Parkinson’s Disease using VR (YouTube: Talk / Demo 1 / Demo 2)
- Dr. Sook-Lei Liew with RE-INVENT: Improving motor function in stroke patients using digital avatars and immersive activities to strengthen neural pathways for greater rehabilitative outcomes in VR (YouTube: Talk / Demo 1 / Demo 2)
- Dr. Judy Pa with Rescue Ranger: Combining physical and cognitive activity to prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease using engaging, story-driven tasks within VR (YouTube: Talk / Demo)
- Dr. Tyler Ard with SCHOL-AR: Embedding Augmented Reality into your academic publications by creating three-dimensional, interactive visual content through the SCHOL-AR app (YouTube: Talk)
Talks were followed by a Q&A session, in which attendees from around the world discussed current issues and future aspirations for the role of XR within rehabilitation and healthcare.
Asynchronous immersive 360° video content of each demo was provided beforehand, which can be viewed via smartphone and cardboard VR headset (complimentary with RSVP for our showcase).
See you all again for more talks, demos, and Q&A sessions by the SMART-VR Center in the future! Stay up-to-date by visiting our events page, subscribing to our monthly newsletter, or following us on Twitter for the latest info on SMART-VR activities in the future.
December 13, 2020
Max Orozco is a designer and creative technologist with a focus on human-centered design and clinical applications for VR. He graduated from USC with a masters in Integrated Design, Business, and Technology in 2020.
Tell us about your background.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, where I stayed throughout my public school years until heading north for college at the University of San Francisco. I found myself falling in love with the brain during those formative undergraduate years, where I was studying both psychology and biology. I was particularly fascinated with the process our brains go through when we create and store new information. Shortly after graduating, I headed straight into academia by joining the psychology laboratories at UCSF. I was also working at a local non-profit working with children in the juvenile system, examining if clinical work would be in my future. When my time there concluded, I came back to Los Angeles to become a research associate at UCLA, where I continued my work with families and children to gather and manage data for our clinical studies.
Things took a turn when I began working with Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, where I was brought onboard their Developmental Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory. Our team researched both the structural and developmental changes that occur throughout childhood using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) techniques, and it was here that my focus began to center around the topic of neuroscience and neuroimaging. This wonderful experience would end up setting the path for my work today.
From there, I came back home to East Los Angeles to USC, where I continued to study the topic of neuroimaging. One of the tools I enjoyed using during my time at CHLA was a Mock MRI scanner — a fiberglass model, play therapy, to prepare children for a real MRI scan. As this is often an intimidating procedure for someone so young, having a way to prepare them was incredible helpful to get them accustomed to what they would experience. There was a great amount of literature and research that went into its creation, and the findings showed many benefits – reduced stress levels, decreased levels of sedation, and improved quality of scans were all among them. Given that our space here at USC made it difficult for us to have our own model to use, I was inspired to find a way to deliver it in a compact and efficient way. This became the impetus for the development of my latest project, Ready Teddy.
What sparked your interest in VR/AR?
Credit goes to my brother for getting me initiated to the world of Virtual Reality! He works as a film engineer, and owned a computer that was powerful enough to run an Oculus Developer’s Kit some years back. When he heard about the gaming capabilities of Virtual Reality, he purchased a developer’s kit and we dove in. As one of six kids growing up with busy parents, we practically grew up on Nintendo – gaming is a big passion of ours! We were so impressed with what it could do as we got acquainted with its capabilities, and we decided to explore the use cases of the technology in healthcare.
We were especially interested in knowing what this technology could do to enrich the lives of populations that often experience decreased levels of mobility, such as the disabled and elderly. Ideas included expanded, or re-imagined experiences using virtual content, as well as the concept of reliving cherished memories in an immersive environment. We brought the very first project we worked on together to senior communities, where we volunteered to help them enjoy the use of this technology over the weekends. Their feedback helped us customize our materials to fit their needs more closely, which produced some excellent 360° videos that helped them feel more connected to the world beyond their apartments. We released this project open source so anyone could benefit from our user research.
Which of your professional accomplishments are you most excited about?
There are two projects in particular that I’ve been really excited about as of late! For starters, I’ve been very active with the annual MIT VR Hackathon, which hosts such an amazing and supportive community. Most of us who work in this field know that Virtual Reality isn’t all that lucrative, so anyone who still gives their all to the development of this medium typically does so out of their belief in the potential this technology has to change lives. This, in turn, tends to draw many dedicated creatives that are wholeheartedly driven in their pursuit to develop innovative content. This past January, I worked with a wonderful team on creating a facial detection application using a Magic Leap device, aimed for those suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. We were the first development team to get facial detection working locally on a Magic Leap device and quickly published our build. The idea allowed for a number of great features to help sufferers of Alzheimer’s Disease navigate social situations as their memories became more difficult to access, such as the ability to recognize family members as well as caretakers who are new to them. Associated images and memories used for reminiscence therapy could also be displayed as faces were recognized by the application, which could help enrich the patient’s social activity for as long as possible. It was the first work of its kind to be developed, and although there were many misgivings about its potential for success, we were able to develop a working model within four or five days thanks to our belief in its usefulness. Our results have since been released to the public, and anyone is free to build upon it further. We believe very much in democratizing access to technology, so we were glad to make it available as an open source project.
My latest project – one that I have been working on diligently for the past year and a half – is called Ready Teddy, and draws from my experience with preparatory MRI procedures for children. Like the mock MRI, it gives children a preview of the sights and sounds they’ll experience to help them adjust to the real procedure – acknowledging portability, price, and feasibility that can present significant barriers to facilities around the world. Improving communication was something I set out to do with this project as well, as explaining and demonstrating exactly what to do can be a real challenge for kids. A question I’d often get from the children was whether being still meant that they were allowed to breathe or not, for example! Biofeedback mechanisms and motion sensors in the headset are able to take over where a clinician may have more trouble demonstrating the exact movements they’d need to do. All of these things help show them exactly what they need to do to get the best images possible.
The first iteration that I had created was very cold and clinical, and didn’t really hit the mark as something a child would find fun and engaging. It wasn’t until I began to incorporate human-centered design – which was my focus of my graduate degree at USC – that I could make a version that was much more palatable and approachable for kids. As my work progressed, I found that there was another practical use for the application in clinical settings with the hopes of reducing dosage rates for sedation when undergoing an MRI. The less you have to use of these powerful sedative drugs on children, the better! The rates are especially high among those of lower socio-economic status and English learners, which makes the development of a procedure that’s much more accessible to them all the more important. With the combination of cost-effectiveness, ease of use, the ability to improve outcomes, and reduce the need for sedation, there’s potential for great clinical impact with this application. Since its launch, we’ve been hearing great things from hospitals all around the world, which has been incredibly fulfilling and exciting!
Is there anything on the horizon of VR and health that you’re especially looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to the day when a VR headset can be found in almost everyone’s home, making access to immersive healthcare interventions and preparatory procedures like ReadyTeddy easy to receive remotely. In our current state, this vision is hard to deploy – Google Cardboard is a cost-effective option, but performance can vary with the quality of one’s phone and would require downloading additional software as well. However, we’ve already begun to see the future of healthcare change in a way that could pave the road for this sort of future, especially during the time of COVID-19. More attention is being given to care that can be delivered in the comfort of a patient’s home, meaning that VR interventions will certainly find greater reception in the near future.
On that topic, I’ve also been very excited to see developments surrounding the work of Akili Interactive, who recently received FDA approval this spring for their game EndeavorXR as a viable treatment for ADHD. The fact that a doctor can now prescribe a game with scientifically proven benefits for treating this population is fantastic, and I’ve been so impressed with the high standards they’ve held themselves to throughout the entire development process. In the often hyped-up world of VR, we need more developments based on reliable evidence rather than unsubstantiated claims in order to bring the medium forward. Their success holds great implications for the future of ADHD and VR, not to mention an endless number of needs that could benefit from this innovative medium. In a similar vein, the work of researchers and developers such as Mel Slater, Skip Rizzo, Marientina Gotsis, and many others who have dedicated their best efforts toward novel ways to apply VR have been wonderful to watch.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
I think I would emphasize the fact that what we’re doing in the intersection of Virtual Reality and healthcare is uncharted territory. Be conscious of the fact that this is an uphill battle, but a worthy one! Having clinicians buy into the idea of a treatment and type of technology they’ve never used before, and that has yet to become broadly adopted within the world of healthcare, is naturally a struggle. Within academia, things are a bit different – you’re within an environment that actively encourages the pursuit of passion and innovation, while the world outside is much more concerned with matters such as efficacy, safety, and minimizing risk. Finding people who are interested in championing new technology is key, and that’s not an easy thing to do. For this reason, developing a product that is sound in its efficacy and data-driven is one of the most important guidelines for your work. And finally, getting your work out there won’t be quite the same as selling a product using all the typical marketing strategies. You’re essentially taking on a paradigm shift in the world of healthcare, which doesn’t happen overnight. That being said, be persistent! Apply your creativity with enthusiasm, employ solid human-centered design techniques to connect with your user, and involve the input of clinicians and your target population to make the most relevant product possible.
Anything you are passionate about, aside from AR/VR?
This should be an easy question, but my life for the past year and a half has been all about the development of my latest Ready Teddy project that there hasn’t been time for much else! Personal projects like this can take nearly everything you have in the way of attention and energy, especially when there is a deep sense of passion and purpose involved. Despite that, I’m satisfied knowing that I’ve been able to make a lasting contribution with this product, which more than makes up for the sacrifices involved. In the end, I’d say that my biggest passions are still those within the space of VR and health. Having an opportunity to change medicine, healthcare, and even the way we think about interventions themselves to improve our health and well-being makes for a great mission in life.
Other interests in my down time include cooking, gardening, and staying active – especially for the health benefits, when most of your day is spent sitting in front of a computer screen for hours on end! While working toward improving the lives of others, developers in our sphere should also be very intentional about caring for our own health as well!
To learn more about Max and his work, visit his website at maxorozco.com.
November 30, 2020
Dr. Glenn Fox is the Head of Program Design, Strategy, and Outreach at the USC Performance Science Institute, as well as a lecturer with the USC Marshall School of Business.
Tell us about your background.
Ever since high school, I’ve always been motivated by questions surrounding the way our minds work. Could our thoughts, as well as our actions, influence one another in a fundamental way? How can we use that knowledge to bring out the best within us, especially when facing the challenges of life? Going into college, I decided to pursue this curiosity for cognitive science alongside another passion in mechanics. I had this inventive and rather ambitious dream at the time – I’d run a shop that doubled as zen retreat, where vehicle restoration and mindful practice were done hand in hand. I enrolled at Cuesta College for formal training in automotive restoration, which was an excellent experience. From there, I continued on to UC Santa Cruz in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in Psychology.
During my undergraduate studies, I discovered that my interest in the mind had more to do with the underlying structure of the brain itself. Although I was motivated to learn as much as possible about the topic, I decided that I needed access to brain imaging facilities. This brought me on a journey up north to Stanford University, where I traveled back and forth as a volunteer in one of their neuroimaging laboratories. I took part in studies related to reading development and neuroplasticity, and my positive experiences there would become the cornerstone of my love for neuroscience and neuroimaging that continues today.
To my surprise, this volunteering experience opened up an unexpected door not long afterward. I had the opportunity to interview with Antonio Demassio in 2006, who was in the process of heading up the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC. He’d been looking for a research assistant with knowledge in structural imaging, which wasn’t as easy to come across in those days. I had taken this choice over the far more popular functional imaging option offered while volunteering, as it seemed like a good fit with my background in mechanics. This turned out to be the fateful coin flip that got things started for me there at the institute.
What sparked your interest in VR/AR?
The first experience with VR that really grabbed my attention was Dr. Skip Rizzo’s Bravemind project, which provides immersion therapy to veterans with PTSD using Virtual Reality. I was amazed at how his work had the power to elicit genuine emotional responses from his patients, which sparked my interest in the potential to address a wide variety of needs. From improving the function of our minds on a fundamental level, all the way to providing practice scenarios for skill-building in the real world – the possibilities are nearly endless. Take the art of public speaking, for example. It’s somewhat of a rare occurrence, yet there tends to be a lot at stake whenever this important skill is required of us. Virtual Reality can close that gap by providing countless simulations to mentally prepare us for important moments such as these, along with many others.
People tend to envision the height of VR as something fully immersive, similar to the alternate realities described in science fiction movies. Although technology continues to advance in impressive ways, it’s important to remember that the majority of our lived experience will always take place within the real world. With that in mind, the most effective application of VR should be focused on improving the quality of our everyday lives. The next question worth exploring, in this case, would surround the transfer of learning between these two contexts. Although research shows limited evidence at the time, I believe that VR has yet to live up to its promise at this point in development. When time brings out its full potential, I’m optimistic that it will become a reliable resource for skill retention from one context to the other.
My long-held relationships with the other founders of the SMART-VR Center have also driven my continued interest in the field. I’ve known Dr. Sook-Lei Liew since our graduate school days, and have been fascinated with Dr. Skip Rizzo’s work on psychology and high-stakes environments for many years. It’s been an exciting opportunity to work alongside them on a new endeavor, and I look forward to where we’ll go together as our work progresses.
Which of your professional accomplishments are you most excited about?
For many years, I studied the effects of gratitude and empathy on the human mind. Gratitude was especially interesting to me, as its practice held great potential for developing agency in the face of life’s difficulties. We ended up publishing the first direct reports of the neural correlates on gratitude, which proved that this practice is related to the brain regions for social connection, empathy, and stress relief – an incredible experience for us.
Our progress with this study motivated me to apply its use toward other aspects of the human experience, which led to founding the Performance Sciences Institute after my postdoctoral work. I wanted to find the area of greatest impact that our work could be applied to, and the obvious answer became the matter of our occupations. Most of us spend the rhythm of our daily lives in a professional setting, and this is where so much stress and potential for setback in our personal goals can occur. I wanted to do as much as possible to bring my understanding of neuroscience to the business world, helping entrepreneurs and founders develop habits and mindsets that could help lead them on the path to success. This eventually led me to pursue a full-time faculty position at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business. I also have some new training initiatives set to take place in the near future, which I’m excited to provide as a resource to our young entrepreneurs and founders in the making.
Is there anything on the horizon of VR and health that you’re especially looking forward to?
With all the great work being produced by my SMART-VR colleagues at the forefront of their fields, I’m very excited to see how their contributions will have a hand in shaping what’s on the horizon for the future of VR. Although my focus is more on the entrepreneurial side of our development, I’m consistently impressed and inspired by their dedication and quality of output. It has been a great experience to work alongside them as part of this incredible team.
In addition to our research projects, I’m also looking forward to the design and development of the SMART-VR Center facility that we plan to construct in the coming years. Having a community space for anyone to experience VR technology, try out the interventions we’ve created, and learn more about what we do will be an exciting way to bring people from many different disciplines together. The center can also work as an incubator for companies interested in testing and piloting new platforms and interventions, providing greater possibilities to reach a wide variety of needs.
What advice would you give to those who wish to follow a similar path?
Learn to listen to the things in life that you can’t seem to learn enough about! Whenever I’d come across a topic like this, my curiosity was impossible to satiate – that’s when I knew I was on to something worth getting into. Following this habit whenever the opportunity presented itself ultimately created the path I’ve taken in life. The same principle applies to the world of entrepreneurship, business, and nearly any other personal endeavor as well.
Anything you are passionate about, aside from AR/VR?
Pursuing creative outlets is incredibly important to me. The future will be a blend of both analog and digital, but daily life itself will continue to take place in the real world. For this reason, we should do our best to stay creative and connected to our surroundings as much as possible. I’ve kept up with my love for mechanics over the years, and I’m currently working on restoring a 1968 Chevy Pickup. Woodworking and welding are two other recent hobbies that I’ve really enjoyed as well. Spending time with my wife and new son is also something I love to do, despite all the energy it takes to keep up with a newborn baby!
To learn more about Dr. Fox, visit his profile at the USC Marshall website here. You can also follow him on Twitter at @glennrfox.
November 9, 2020
Starting in Fall 2020, SMART-VR has officially launched our Student Ambassador Program! This new initiative aims to bring together students across USC for greater connectivity between VR and many different disciplines. Learn about what fields of study they represent, their backgrounds in Virtual Reality, and how they’ll be contributing to our community this school year:
Garrett Flynn:
- What department do you represent at USC?
Interactive Media & Games - What sparked your interest in VR?
Since I came across Neuromancer by William Gibson in high school, I’ve had a fascination with full-dive virtual reality. This served as the inspiration to pursue my undergraduate education in neuroscience and continues to influence my long-term outlook on the future of interactive media. - In what way would you like to see VR make a positive change in your field of research?
I’d like to see VR used to provide access to high-quality therapeutic and entertainment experiences to a wide variety of stakeholders. In particular, I'm curious to explore what can be done when pairing neurotechnology and virtual reality for those with severe motor deficits (e.g. cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, etc.) - What are you hoping to achieve as a Student Ambassador?
My hope as a Student Ambassador is to showcase the latest research at the intersection of neurotechnology and virtual reality.
Ashwin Sakhare:
- What department do you represent at USC?
Biomedical Engineering - What sparked your interest in VR?
My interest in VR actually originated from an idea our lab had to utilize virtual reality to assess spatial navigation skills in older adults. As I became more involved in this project my interest in VR grew and I began to think of ways VR could be used to assess or improve other cognitive domains. - In what way would you like to see VR make a positive change in your field of research?
I think VR can be used as a fun, engaging, and ecologically valid tool for maintaining brain health. A lot of focus is on exercise to promote a healthy body, but I think there is a lot of potential for immersive games that are specifically designed to keep the mind sharp as well. In the future, I envision people using VR for their daily brain training workout the same way they go to the gym to workout - What are you hoping to achieve as a Student Ambassador?
I'm hoping to share the unique and novel ways others around the world are utilizing VR to tackle the challenge of maintaining brain health as we age.
Awu Chen:
- What department do you represent at USC?
I represent USC's Interactive Media & Games Division. - What sparked your interest in VR?
The concept of reliving one's own memory through virtual reality has inspired my research. - In what way would you like to see VR make a positive change in your field of research?
I look forward to the day when diseases like Alzheimer's can be cured through VR. - What are you hoping to achieve as a Student Ambassador?
My hope as a student ambassador is to raise public awareness of VR's applications beyond gaming.
Stephanie Ng:
- What department do you represent at USC?
I represent the Iovine and Young Academy at USC. - What sparked your interest in VR?
A few years ago I first tried on a Cardboard and was surprised by how immersive VR was, even in its primitive form. - In what way would you like to see VR make a positive change in your field of research?
I'm interested in how VR can be a creative tool or utility that takes advantage of having a third dimension. - What are you hoping to achieve as a Student Ambassador?
As a student ambassador I'm looking forward to connecting VR students and professionals from both my school and SMART-VR.
November 7, 2020