Keynote Speakers
Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D.
University of Southern California, USA
“Clinical Virtual Reality: A Brief Review of the Future”
Abstract: Since the mid-1990s, Clinical Virtual Reality (VR) has evolved from an experimental novelty into a maturing clinical tool with an expanding evidence base across behavioral health, neurorehabilitation, and functional restoration. This use of VR simulation technology has produced encouraging results when applied to address the cognitive, psychological, motor, and emotional impairments seen across a wide range of clinical health conditions. This presentation will provide a model for clinical processes that provides a framework for understanding the trajectory of Clinical VR over the last 30 years as a tool in the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders, PTSD, pain management, autism, ADHD, and in the rehabilitation of stroke, brain injury, and other neurologically-based conditions. Time permitting, the presentation will also include some discussion of the advances in Virtual Human (VH) and Conversational AI technology for clinical training, healthcare coaching, and clinical interviewing. While science never sleeps and much R&D is still needed to advance this area, the current state of the literature is positive and technological advances have reduced the costs and complexity of delivering this type of care in everyday practice. I will argue (with research findings, patient testimonials, and clinical implementation use cases) that Clinical VR/VH applications are poised to become essential assets in the future of healthcare research and practice, with growing influence and adoption across a spectrum of patient populations. This trend will be amplified with the integration of AI into the VR system design, development, and evaluation process, along with multimodal sensing to drive bi-directional interaction and stimulus delivery based on user state.
Bio: Skip Rizzo is a Clinical Psychologist, and directs of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) Medical VR Lab. He is a research professor in both the USC Dept. of Psychiatry and the School of Gerontology. Over the last 30 years, he has conducted research on the design, development and evaluation of VR systems across the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in healthy and clinical populations. This work has focused on PTSD, TBI, Autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, psychedelic therapy, suicide prevention, and other clinical conditions. Perhaps best known for his empirically validated use of VR in the treatment of combat and sexual trauma related PTSD, he has a long history of working in an interdisciplinary fashion with computer scientists, graphic artists, software engineers, and medical/industry leaders & in 2023, received the IEEE VR Lifetime Achievement Award. For more info on his work: https://www.youtube.com/user/AlbertSkipRizzo/videos
Maria Roussou
National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, Greece
“Weaving Reflection into XR Learning Spaces”
Abstract: Immersive technologies have reached a point of maturity where their ability to engage learners is no longer the central question. XR can capture attention, foster presence, and support embodied, situated encounters with knowledge. Rather than simply presenting information, it places learners in relation to it, enabling perspective shifts, spatial understanding, and active participation. Yet many XR experiences continue to privilege stimulation over interpretation, activity over sense-making, realism over dialogue, and immediacy over critical distance. The challenge then before us is what kinds of thinking does XR sustain after the headset comes off.
In this talk I will argue that the next frontier for XR to produce lasting learning lies in designing for reflection. Drawing on theories of reflective learning, I propose reflection as a design material rather than an instructional afterthought: something that can be embedded into immersive experiences through purposeful pauses, revisitation, multiple perspectives, collaborative interpretation, transitions between immersion and discussion, and movement between physical and virtual spaces. Examples from informal learning contexts will illustrate how shared XR environments can foster collective meaning-making through dialogue, coordination, and perspective-taking.
Ultimately, XR may become most educationally powerful when immersion and reflection are designed together. As designers we can design the conditions under which immersive experience becomes reflective thought.
Bio: Maria is an Associate Professor in Interactive Systems at the University of Athens, specializing in eXtended Reality (XR) and Human-Computer Interaction, specifically on designing and evaluating digital experiences for education and culture. For most of the 90s, Maria studied, worked, and practically lived in the CAVE®; first at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory in Chicago, designing virtual and digital media environments for educational and cultural purposes. Then (1998-2003), at the Foundation of the Hellenic World in Athens, where she led the Virtual Reality Department, creating immersive projection-based VR exhibits and visitor experiences. In 2003, she co-founded makebelieve, an experience design and consulting company. Maria holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of London (UCL); an MFA in Electronic Visualization and an MSc in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago; and a BSc in Applied Informatics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. A Senior Member of the ACM, she serves as Chair of the Greek ACM-W Chapter. She is the recipient of the 2013 Tartessos Award for her work in digital heritage and virtual archaeology.
Please note: The keynote speakers will be announced and updated as they are confirmed.
Nuria Pelechano
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
“From Self-Avatars to Virtual Crowds: Enhancing Immersive Experiences”
Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) is rapidly evolving into a new social environment in which people interact and collaborate with autonomous agents and avatars controlled by other users. In the real world, nonverbal behavior, physical appearance, and multisensory cues play a fundamental role in shaping communication and influencing how individuals perceive others. As social interactions in virtual worlds increasingly take place through virtual humans, it is essential to understand how the design and behavior of avatars and autonomous characters can influence the quality and plausibility of these interactions and contribute to a stronger sense of social presence. Furthermore, creating populated virtual environments that users perceive as plausible can elicit more realistic behavioral responses, making VR platforms a promising framework for investigating human behavior in controlled and immersive settings.
In this talk, I will explore how simulation and animation contribute to the creation of engaging and believable virtual humans in VR. I will discuss both groups of autonomous agents that interact with users and self-avatars that represent the user within the virtual environment. For interactions with groups of virtual agents, I will show how incorporating beliefs about physical collisions, spatialized audio, and vibrotactile feedback can enhance co-presence and contribute to a more plausible and engaging virtual experience. I will then turn to self-avatars and examine how animation quality and multisensory feedback shape the sense of embodiment, influence task performance, and can even alter the way we perceive our own bodies.
Bio: Prof. Nuria Pelechano is an associate Professor at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain, where she is a member of the Research Center for Visualization, Virtual Reality and Graphics Interaction (ViRVIG). She is the president of the Eurographics Spanish Chapter, and member of executive committee of the Sociedad Científica Española de Informática (SCIE). She has co-authored two books on Crowd Simulation and has published over 50 papers in journals and conferences on computer graphics, animation and virtual reality. She has participated in projects funded by the EU (MSCA ITN-ETN CLIPE, XR4ED, and ViWAS), Spanish Government, and USA institutions, and also worked on technology transfer projects regarding crowd evacuation, and applications of Virtual Reality for architecture design. Her research interests include simulation, animation and rendering of crowds, virtual reality, and studying human-avatar interaction in Virtual Reality.