This just in! Read the latest news featuring the work and members of XRPeds!
XR Access Symposium, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
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.
XRPeds at Games for Change, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
The XRPeds Team attended the 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.
XR Access Symposium
Thursday, June 26, 2025
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.
Games for Change Festival
Thursday, June 26, 2025
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.
Immersive Learning Research Network Conference, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
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.
iLRN (Immersive Learning Research Network) 2025
Sunday, June 15, 2025
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.
XR Peds at the ACM Interactive Media Experiences, Rio
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
The XRPeds Team attended and presented at 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" (Link). Shu Wei presented her demo for "The Arborist: A Collective Bloom Through Physiological Data in Mixed Reality" (Link) , and Michael Gancz, their demo for "...Screenless Optical Theremin with Tremolo (ScOTT)." (Link)
ACM Interactive Media Experiences (IMX) Conference
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
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)."
Yale Pediatric Education Learning Community (PELC) Speaker Series
Thursday, May 22, 2025
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.
SNO Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Conference
Friday, May 16, 2025
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.