News Archive | Page 4 of 14

CHI PLAY 2025

Monday, October 13, 2025

Our former Postdoc Erin J.K. Truesdell presented the paper, “Game Playbooks 2.0: An Updated Strategy for Supporting Game-Based Behavior Change Interventions” at CHI PLAY 2025, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The paper co-authored by Drs. Truesdell, Weser, Murray, Crocker, Marks, Martinello, and Hieftje, presents an updated Game Playbook framework—a collaborative tool that integrates theory, design, and evaluation to guide the creation of effective game-based behavior change interventions.

Sogang University Seminar, 2025

Monday, October 13, 2025

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje and Bernard François (Founder, Preview Labs) gave a seminar talk on “Co-Creating Immersive Experiences: Where Research Meets Prototyping. They share how researchers and game developers can collaborate to create impactful health-focused VR projects. Their partnership combines research insight with rapid prototyping, showcased through two works to illustrate how close collaboration can expand VR's potential in clinical training and personal storytelling.

IEEE ISMAR 2025

Thursday, October 9, 2025

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje presented the demo of, “Year of the Cicadas: Using Sound and Story to Understand Parental Grief,” coauthored by Drs. Hieftje, Marks, and Schartmann, at ISMAR 2025, South Korea. The narrative-driven VR experience uses spatialized sound and personal storytelling to explore parental grief and will be integrated into medical training for pediatric fellows and medical students in Spring 2026.

ISMIR 2025

Monday, September 22, 2025

Our Research Associate Michael Gancz presented their poster, “Spatial Perception of HRTF-Matched Binaural Audio” at ISMIR, Daejon, South Korea! They present early results from a study quantifying listeners’ ability to localize sounds in near-field virtual space.

Pediatric Grand Rounds, Mayo Clinic

Friday, September 5, 2025

Dr. Asher Marks presented the lab’s work at Mayo Clinic’s Grand Rounds during his sabbatical this past September. The title of the talk was “The Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics: Using Immersive Technologies to Improve the Health and Well-Being of Youth and Young Adults.”

Life at 100.4 Receives NIH STTR Funding!

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

XR Pediatrics, in collaboration with The Glimpse Group, Drexel University, and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), received an NIH Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant to develop Life at 100.4, a multiplayer virtual reality experience that teaches adolescents and young adults with cancer about febrile neutropenia, a serious complication of cancer treatment. Led by Dr. Asher Marks, the project brings together collaborators including Dr. Frank Lee (Drexel University), our former XR Pediatrics postdoctoral fellow Dr. Erin Truesdell, now an Assistant Professor at NJIT, and The Glimpse Group. Development is underway, with a pilot study planned for 2027.

XR Peds at Serious Play, 2025

Thursday, August 14, 2025

The XR Peds Team attended and presented at the Serious Play Conference in Rochester, NY. Drs. Asher Marks and Kimberly Hieftje gave a talk titled, "Future of Immersive Technology in Serious Games." Dr. Shu Wei gave her talk titled, "Beyond Pulse: Biometric XR for Health & Art."

Serious Play Conference

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Drs. Asher Marks, Kimberly Hieftje, and Shu Wei attended the Serious Play Conference in Rochester, NY. Drs. Asher Marks and Kimberly Hieftje gave a talk titled “Future of Immersive Technology in Serious Games.” Dr. Shu Wei gave a talk titled “Beyond Pulse: Biometric XR for Health & Art.”

NIME Conference, 2025

Friday, June 27, 2025

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

New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) Conference