Muhsinah L. Holmes Morris, Ph.D., is the Director of “Morehouse in the Metaverse,” a VR Project at Morehouse College and Assistant Professor of Education for the Morehouse Center for Excellence in Education (ECEE). She is an alumna of Clark Atlanta University (BS) and Emory University (MS, PhD). She teaches her chemistry courses in VR on Morehouse’s digital twin campus created by VictoryXR on the Engage Platform.
Well known as the “Cyber Guardian,” founder & CEO of the XR Safety Initiative (XRSI), Kavya Pearlman is an award-winning cybersecurity professional with a deep interest in immersive and emerging technologies. Kavya is a pioneer of the novel XRSI Privacy Framework for the Immersive Technologies and Spatial Computing Domain, security awareness in the metaverse, and various baseline security and privacy standards for XR.
Nathalie Mathe is a pioneer virtual reality (VR) creator and a globally recognized consultant, educator, and public speaker. A former NASA AI scientist and visual effects artist, she combines her artistic passion with a solid scientific and technical background to explore new frontiers in VR storytelling and embodiment. She is the founder of NativeVR, an independent VR studio in California, where she focuses on creating immersive experiences with a transformative and social impact, generating a more diverse and equitable future.
Owing to its ability to immerse its user in a sensory real-life experience, immersive virtual reality (IVR) has been proposed in literature as a promising technology for medical empathy training by allowing its users to virtually “step into the patients’ shoes”. Given that perspective-taking is a core component of empathy, it is not surprising that VR experiences have been shown in literature to enhance empathy in its users by enabling them to embody another person in a virtual realistic environment.
Dr. Ghazi MD, FEBU, MSc, received his medical education from Cairo University, Egypt in 2000, where he also completed his surgery training and Urology residency 2001-2005. Following his training he completed a series of worldwide fellowships in state-of-the-art minimal invasive Urological surgery, in Paris and Austria (2009-2011), where he received his accreditation from the European Board of Urology. He completed an Endourology and robotic surgery fellowship at the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York (2011-2013).
David Glowacki is originally from Milwaukee. He has appointments as a Royal Society Research Fellow, Philip Leverhulme award holder, and ERC grantee at the University of Bristol where he founded a research group called the ‘Intangible Realities Laboratory’ (IRL) joint between the Centre for Computational Chemistry and the Department of Computer Science. The IRL develops open-source immersive technology software projects at frontiers of scientific, aesthetic, and technological practice.
Professor Santhanam (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Radiation Oncology, University of California Los Angeles) is a Founder, Director and an Advisor for SegAna. Dr. Santhanam has worked on the biomechanical modeling of lungs since 2002 for different applications ranging from computer animation, virtual reality, rehabilitation, tissue engineering to radiation oncology. His PhD dissertation was focused on developing High Performance Computing based algorithms for physics and physiology-based 3D lung dynamics using state of-the-art Graphics Processing Units (GPU).
Next generation display technologies expected to enhance our lives with Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications, which will revolutionize entertainment, healthcare, communication, and manufacturing industries among many others. In this talk, I will introduce the key challenges in designing near-eye VR/AR displays to meet the requirements of the human visual system. I will describe how we can address those challenges with our novel varifocal near-eye display designs. Key to our efforts is a novel see-through rear-projection screen.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
This daunting question is often asked of children who have hardly been alive long enough to know about career opportunities other than public offices, celebrity platforms and what their parents do for a living. It often isn’t until much later in life – after their talents and desires are honed – when anyone can muster a well-informed answer.
This was the case for Cali Fidopiastis, who never pictured herself as the inspiring scientist she is today.
Born and raised in Sacramento, CA, Steven Christian (he/him/his), grew up playing sports, spanning football, basketball, and baseball. His excellence in football earned him a scholarship to the University of Hawaii. During his college career, he injured his hips and had to get bilateral hip reconstructive surgery. During his recovery, he began to explore art, comics, and developing content for mobile devices.
