Prof Sylvia Pan is a Professor of Virtual Reality at Goldsmiths, University of London. She co-leads the SeeVR research group including 10 academics and researchers. She holds a PhD in Virtual Reality, and an MSc in Computer Graphics, both from UCL, and a BEng in Computer Science from Beihang University, Beijing, China. Before joining Goldsmiths in 2015, she worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, and at the Computer Science Department of UCL. Her research interest is the use of Virtual Reality as a medium for real-time social interaction, in particular in the application areas of training and therapy. Her work in social anxiety in VR and moral decisions in VR has been featured multiple times in the media, including BBC Horizon, the New Scientist magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. Her 2017 Coursera VR specialisation attracted over 100,000 learners globally, and she co-leads on the MA/MSc in Virtual and Augmented Reality at Goldsmiths.

Dr Gavin Buckingham was awarded his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Aberdeen (UK) in 2008, before working as a postdoctoral fellow in the Brain and Mind Institute at Western University (Canada). In 2013, he returned to the UK to join the Psychology Department of Heriot-Watt University as a lecturer. Then, in 2016, he joined the University of Exeter (UK) where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Sport Sciences. Recently, his work has been mostly focused on how we move, perceive, and learn new skills in physical and virtual environments.

VIVE creates fully immersive, premium-grade virtual reality products for everyone with breathtaking graphics and lifelike sounds. Work, play, learn, and experience the world in ways you never thought possible.

 

Sam Watts has been working in the creative and immersive technologies space for 20+ years in and around gaming, training and simulations, with clients like BBC, Channel 4, Sky, Vodafone, McDonalds and EDF Energy to name but a few. With over 150+ immersive experiences deployed across the world, Sam has a unique insight into how organisations struggle with but also can successfully incorporate technologies at work, home and on the move

PhaseSpace is an industry leader in the development and delivery of motion capture, tracking, and vision processing solutions. Privately held, it was founded in 1994 and has placed system solutions at hundreds of customer sites worldwide. Clients include UC Berkeley, Boeing, Brainzoo, Cambridge, Cardiff, Disney, Eden Games, Harmonix, EPFL, FBI, Honda Research (Think Asimo Robot), Google, Willow Garage, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Sandia National Labs, as well as the US Air Force, Army, Navy, and others. PhaseSpace’s speciality is providing high technology solutions using both hardware and software development.

Zillah Watson is an Emmy-nominated creative leader, who led the BBC’s award-winning VR studio. She’s an expert in commissioning, creation and distribution of VR and AR and consults for organisations including the BBC, BFI and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She recently founded Phase Space, a start-up focused on using VR to bring a step change in mental health support.

She led research on the impact of VR storytelling with Professor Mel Slater at the BBC, and was a visiting fellow at the Reuter’s Journalism Institute, University of Oxford, where she authored “VR for News: A New Reality”.