Events

Drs. Asher Marks, Kimberly Hieftje, and Shu Wei will be attending the Serious Play Conference in Rochester, NY. Drs. Asher Marks and Kimberly Hieftje will giving a talk titled, "Future of Immersive Technology in Serious Games." Dr. Shu Wei will be giving a talk titled, "Beyond Pulse: Biometric XR for Health & Art."

Michael Gancz participated in the NIME Conference, showcasing a presentation of the Screenless Optical Theremin with Tremolo (ScOTT) and earning a paper acceptance.

Justin Berry attended the XR Access Symposium as a plenary speaker in New York, NY. His talk, "Lemmings: Tools for Accessible Gestures", introduces Lemmings, an open-source Unity tool that makes gesture-based controls more accessible by replacing complex hand shapes with simpler, customizable motion inputs, enabling users to interact using movements that are more physically comfortable and achievable. 

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje, Dr. Shu Wei, Skylar Bartush, and Chris Shia attended Games for Change in New York, NY. Shu Wei presented her talk, "Emotional Avatar: Virtual Humans for Automated Mental Health Therapy", which uses data to demonstrate how affect character design can reshape user trust, engagement, and physiological response in VR therapy.

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje was a keynote speaker at iLRN 2025 in Chicago, IL. Her keynote "Reality Check: What Immersive Technology Needs from Education", highlighted findings from our statewide study based in Connecticut public high schools which examined how immersive technology is being integrated, the challenges schools are navigating, and what educators say they need to move from interest to meaningful implementation.

Justin Berry (Project Director), Michael Gancz (Research Associate), and Dr. Shu Wei (Postdoctoral Associate) attended the IMX Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Justin Berry presented his latest work in his talk, "Lemmings: Creating Re-mappable Gestures for More Accessible Immersive Experiences." Shu Wei presented her demo for "The Arborist: A Collective Bloom Through Physiological Data in Mixed Reality", and Michael Gancz, their demo for "...Screenless Optical Theremin with Tremolo (ScOTT)."

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje was a speaker at the Yale Pediatric Education Learning Community (PELC) Speaker Series. Her talk titled, "The Grief We Don't Teach: Virtual Reality as a Tool for Understanding Child Loss", highlighted Year of the Cicadas, her VR experience that explores grief and child loss over time. Broadly, she shared how immersive technology, and personal narrative can be used as an educational tool to deepen our understanding of grief and meaning-making.

Dr. Asher Marks presented his talk, "Health Equity and Digital Interventions for AYA Patients" during the "Adolescent and Young Adults with Pediatric CNS Tumors - How to Bridge the Gaps" at the SNO Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Conference in San Diego, CA. His talk discussed how technology can be leveraged in AYA (adolescents and young adult) oncology care to amplify AYAs desire to explore, seek, and learn from socially and affectively salient experiences.

Postdoctoral Associate, Dr. Shu Wei, presented her doctoral work in a Late-Breaking Work session titled, "Physiological Responses to Affective Virtual Coach Design in a VR Fear of Heights Consultation" at the 2025 CHI Conference in Yokohama, Japan. Her presentation explored how emotional design elements in virtual reality coaches, like facial warmth and nodding, affect physiological stress and regulation during automated mental health interventions.

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje participated as a panelist in the event "Tech Tools in Training and Patient Care," hosted by the Health Care & Life Sciences Council of the Greater New Haven Chamber & Affiliates. Joined by Ted Dinsmore (President, SphereGen), Dr. Deborah Morrill (Assistant Professor, SCSU), and Dr. David Pearlstone (CEO, DICOM Director), the panel facilitated a community dialogue on the current and future use of immersive technology in healthcare and education, exploring its benefits, challenges, and implementation strategies.