News & Press

Thursday, March 9, 2023

The XR Pediatrics team traveled this month to GDC in San Francisco. Co-Directors Drs. Asher Marks and Kimberly Hieftje spoke about XR tech and kids at the Future Realities Summit on Tuesday, 3/21. After returning home, members of the GDC team went to Boston for this year's PAX East conference. Both of these events brought our team closer to the other talented members of the games industry.

Monday, February 13, 2023

The first-ever Medicine in the Metaverse Conference was a great success! Organized by XR Pediatrics' Randy Rode, dozens of healthcare and XR specialists came together for insightful conversation and demos of the new innovations utilizing VR and AR technologies in the clinical space. We look forward to next year's event!

Sunday, January 29, 2023

See what's new at XR Pediatrics in our January Newsletter!

Friday, January 27, 2023

Members of the XR Pediatrics team and collaborators had their work published by Mary Ann Liebert for their Pilot Study of empowerED, a video game aimed at mental health issues in youth populations.

Monday, December 12, 2022

The preprint to our new publication just dropped! This protocol paper is about our pilot RCT of InvestiDate, a game about empowering Black teen girls around their sexual health.

Friday, November 11, 2022

XR Pediatrics has released its First Newsletter. Newsletters will be released quarterly and feature all the amazing things XR Pediatrics has done in the past few months! We hope you enjoy!

Friday, October 28, 2022

XR Pediatrics has brought on two new team members!

Jake Shaker is our new Program Manager! A UCONN graduate, Jake brings over five years of experience recruiting and interacting with clinical populations in Human Subjects Research at Yale University. Jake also brings audio engineering, sound design, and music composition experience to the game design team.

Joshua is a postgraduate associate with a focus on video game design. Joshua graduated from Quinnipiac University with his BA in Game Design and Development. Joshua’s skillset will help us to create more engaging and fun experiences! Joshua is also leading XRPeds social media efforts to better communicate XRPeds work and accomplishments.

We're so happy to welcome both Jake and Josh to the XR Pediatrics family and are so excited for their help on all our exciting projects!

Friday, October 28, 2022

On the week of October 17-21, XR Pediatrics Co-Directors Dr. Asher Marks, MD, and Dr. Kimberly Hieftje, PhD, were in Lisbon attending the AWE and IVRHA conferences as speakers. These events were great ways to spread awareness of XR Pediatrics’ advancements and to share how we’ve been applying immersive technologies into clinical settings. Dr. Marks spoke regarding his use of Foretell Reality for virtual group therapy and the benefits of said model. Dr. Hieftje held a track at AWE to discuss the use of immersive technologies in educational and professional training. These events were a great experience and we look forward to continue sharing our work.

Friday, October 28, 2022

XR Pediatrics Co-Director Dr. Asher Marks, MD, and other Yale collaborators, were just published in JMIR Publications! Dr. Marks' research focuses on infection prevention with Virtual Reality headset use and finding appropriate disinfection procedures. As VR applications in medical settings continue to rise, this research is key to ensuring safe patient use. Dr. Mark's research has the potential to lead to more sanitary standards in the use of immersive technologies. Read his research here!

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Dr. Ijeoma Opara speaks live on camera about the importance of representation in games and how InvestiDate can make a difference in the dating lives of Black teen girls: Watch the news spot and read the summary here!