Events

Co-Directors, Drs. Kimberly Hieftje and Asher Marks presented their talk titled, "Little Hands, Big Worlds: XR for Kids at the Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics" at MIT's Reality Hack Hackathon. They presented the latest recommendations regarding XR use and development for kids.

Dr. Asher Marks presented a talk titled, "The Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics: Using Immersive Technologies to Improve the Health and Well-Being of Youth and Young Adults," at the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Grand Rounds. His talk explored applications of XR in healthcare and education and detailed the various ongoing projects within the lab and center.

Dr. Veronica Weser was invited to speak to the University of Oklahoma's Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in a talk entitled, "Discover how video games, informed by evidence, are created with extended reality technology". Her talk emphasizes the recent projects by XRPeds, the implications of VR in mental health and education, and the benefit of utilizing VR for youth populations.

Postgraduate Associates, Mona Sinha and Skylar Bartush, represented XRPeds at the 2024 Connecticut School Based Health Centers Conference. They showcased our nicotine and marijuana vaping prevention intervention, Invite Only VR: reHASHED.

Dr. Marks and Dr. Mairi Wac (University of Bristol) gave their talk, "Virtual Reality for AYA’s: Shared Challenges and Successes in the UK and US" at the 6th Annual Virtual Reality and Healthcare Europe Symposium. Highlights of their talk include integration of AI with VR surgical training simulations, muscle-stimulating sensors for physiotherapy, VR for storytelling and patient education, and the revolution of surgical training through a neurocognitive approach.

Dr. Hieftje attended the Meta Educators Community Summit in Palo Alto, CA. The summit brought together approximately 70 educators leading the use of immersive technologies in education. Representatives from 26 universities, K-12 institutions, and Meta explored innovative university-level VR initiatives and contributed feedback to shape Meta’s VR education efforts.

Dr. Hieftje will be part of a session entitled, “Let’s Get Real: Using Virtual and Extended Reality for Infection Prevention, Control Training and Education of Frontline Staff” at IDWeek 2024 in Los Angeles, CA and will discuss the development of our VR videogame intervention focused on reducing infection spread among parents in the NICU setting.

Drs. Hieftje and Marks, as well as composer, Dr. Andrew Schartmann, will be speaking about the Year of the Cicadas at the Serious Play Conference in Toronto, Canada. The Year of the Cicadas is a VR experience about grief and meaning making over time after the loss of a child.

Dr. Hieftje, Editor-in-Chief for the Games for Health Journal, gave a talk entitled “Games for Health: The Next Level” at ADITGames. She discussed how the Games for Health field has evolved over the past two decades.