Academic

Damian Murphy is Professor in Sound and Music Computing at AudioLab in the Department of Electronic Engineering, University of York, where his research focuses on the development and creative application of immersive audio and virtual acoustic modelling. He is an active sound artist, and the Director of the £15m XR Stories Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Creative Industries R&D Partnership exploring the next generation of interactive and immersive storytelling for the UK’s creative screen industries.

Fabrizio is Associate Professor in Heritage and Creative Technologies and Deputy Director of the StoryLab Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University. His research explores the combination of 3D interactive visualisation, immersive technologies (VR, AR, MR) and multimodal storytelling to develop cutting-edge solutions for heritage preservation and revitalisation, community engagement and sustainable development.
Fabrizio applies rapid prototyping, speculative design, and agile creative practice methodologies to his research to explore, reflect on, and evidence the connections between digitally reproduced tangible heritage and communities’ identities and values (i.e., intangible heritage). An example of his work is the Reviving Kusunda project funded by the British Academy and presented at the British Academy Summer Showcase 2022 and on BBC World News.
Fabrizio has acted as academic advisor of several SMEs and international organisations and developed several knowledge transfer partnerships. These collaborations include the KTP-Innovate UK Immersive Antarctica project in collaboration with UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and the UNESCO Network for Mediterranean Youth, aimed at equipping partner youth organisations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with new IT skills to support their engagement for the protection and promotion of cultural heritage.

Prof. James Bennett is Director of StoryFutures Creative Cluster and Co- Director of StoryFutures Academy and the StoryTrails UnBoxed project. He is Professor of Television and Digital Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. When he’s not immersed in the future of storytelling, he likes running, sea swimming and Vegemite.

I'm a group leader of the Analysis, Visualisation and Informatics (AVI) group at Oxford University working on new ways to analyse and integrate biological research and clinical data. We're developing new ways of visualising massive multi-dimensional data sets using techniques from machine learning to immersive technologies such as virtual reality. My current areas of research include spatial proteomics, multiplex imaging, epigenetics and 3D genome modelling.

You can see examples of my group’s XR work on https://medicalxr.molbiol.ox.ac.uk/.

Sean Taylor is a BAFTA-winning producer and director with more than 25-years of experience in the games and interactive entertainment industry. Credits include the Crackdown, Grand Theft Auto, and Moshi Monsters franchies. He is currently Director of InGAME, the UKRI research and innovation centre for games, immersive technologies and media enterprise. He is also the author of Punk Playthings: Provocations for 21st Century Game Makers (CRC Press 2017).

Neill Campbell is Director of CAMERA and a Royal Society Industry Fellow. He works in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath as a Reader (Associate Professor) in Computer Vision, Graphics and Machine Learning. Neill also holds an Honorary Associate Professor position in the Vision and Imaging Science Group in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. CAMERA performs world-leading research in Intelligent Visual and Interactive Technology, underpinned by academic and partner expertise across core research disciplines - Computer Vision, Graphics, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and AI - as well expertise in healthcare, rehabilitation, biomechanics, musculoskeletal modelling, sports performance, and psychology.

Nadia is an investor and business developer who has spent over ten years at the RCA developing enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes and supporting graduate entrepreneurs.
After a twenty-year commercial career in the biotechnology sector, Nadia has a cross sectoral focus on innovation. She invests in and supports the creation and growth of new design-led ventures and she trains and mentors more mature non-design businesses internationally to help them to innovate and grow. She leads the Royal College of Art's entrepreneurship centre, InnovationRCA and is responsible for the direction of its start-up accelerators. In 2015 she set up AngelClubRCA to connect investors and UK companies seeking early stage investment. She has worked with over 200 companies from a very diverse range of sectors and, on behalf of the Royal College of Art, has invested in over 60.
Nadia has worked in Europe, the USA and her roles have also included responsibility for operations in Asia. A PhD life scientist, with an MBA, Nadia's broad commercial experience, at international Corporates and with start-ups, have given her a breadth of experience from which she draws when working with founders.

Mona is a designer and Lecturer in Immersive Experience Design at Abertay University where she acts as Programme Co-Lead on the TIGA-accredited BA (Hons) Game Design and Production. She completed her PhD: "Playing with Performance/Performing Play. Creating hybrid experiences at the fringes of video games and performance" at Abertay in 2019.
She has published in Games and Culture (SAGE), Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds (Intellect), The Scottish Journal of Performance and presented work at numerous national and international conferences and events: DiGRA, CHI, ELO, ResFest, BBC Click Live, Future Play at the Edinburgh Fringe, Games Are For Everyone, Arcadia.
Her research is practice-based and focuses on the convergence of performance practice and videogames, particularly designing hybrid forms of storytelling, performative games, mixed-reality and immersive experiences and games for public spaces and heritage sites. Mona is currently working on a series of projects that investigate the potential of games for capturing, preserving and sharing lived experience.
You can find out more about Mona’s work on her portfolio website:https://www.performingplay.co.uk/

Fridolin Wild is professor at the Institute of Educational Technology of The Open University, also leading the Performance Augmentation Lab (PAL). Fridolin seeks to close the dissociative gap between abstract knowledge and its practical application, researching radically new forms of linking directly from knowing something ‘in principle’ to applying that knowledge ‘in practice’ and speeding its refinement and integration into polished performance.
Fridolin is and has been leading numerous EU, European Space Agency, and nationally funded research projects, including ARETE, LAAR, AR-for-EU, WEKIT, TCBL, ARPASS, Tellme, TELmap, cRunch, Stellar, Role, LTfLL, iCamp, and Prolearn.
Fridolin leads the Special Interest Group on Wearable-Enhanced Learning (SIG WELL) of the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL). He chairs the working group on Augmented Reality Learning Experience Models (ARLEM) of the IEEE Standards Association as well as the Natural Language Processing task view of the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). He co-chairs the IEEE ICICLE SIG XR for Learning and Performance Augmentation. Fridolin is a trust Governor of Oxford Spires Academy.
From 2015 to 2020, Fridolin was Senior Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. From 2009 to 2016, he was at the Knowledge Media Institute of the OU. Fridolin also worked as a researcher at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria from 2004 to 2009. He studied at the University of Regensburg, Germany, with extra-murals at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the University of Hildesheim.

Dr Faisal Mushtaq is Director of the Centre for Immersive Technologies, one of the UK's leading XR research centres, and holds a position as Professor in Cognitive Science at the University of Leeds. With a background in the cognitive neuroscience of learning, he has worked with VR technologies for over a decade and has acted as academic advisor for several SMEs. He was awarded a "250 Great Minds Fellowship" as recognition for his growing reputation as an international research leader. He has published extensively in a variety of high-impact journals on the use of XR for augmenting human learning and performance. Notably, his research team were the first to demonstrate potential cognitive and visual deficits following VR exposure in young children. Most recently, he led the development of a report published in partnership with Health Education England and a network of clinicians, scientists and businesses which outlined a vision for realising the potential of immersive healthcare solutions for the NHS in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chris supports academics from across the University in driving forwards Immersive Technologies as a major research and teaching priority for the University.
Prior to this role, Chris worked in the University’s Contracts & Commercialisation and team specialising in Life science technologies.
https://www.leeds.ac.uk/centre-immersive-technologies-our-people

Dr Waraich is Director of the School of Computer Science and Mathematics at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). Prior to joining LJMU (in June 2017) he was Head of Division of Digital Media and Entertainment technology at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and also Enterprise Lead and was founder and Director of the Manchester Usability Laboratory.
His research interests cover several areas. The first is the use of technology to enhance learning, specifically he is interested in how game like environments can be used to promote learning and to motivate learners to engage in their studies. He has a growing interest in the security and application of 5G wireless technologies. Dr. Waraich also has a research interest in the application of usability and behaviour modification techniques (including gamification) to Augmented and Virtual Reality environments and is the founder and Director of the Liverpool Immersive Experience (LIVE) Lab.

Dr Alex Attridge is a Project Manager for the Digital Validation and Verification theme of WMG's centre for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. Dr Attridge has over 10 years' experience in automotive R&D, with specific expertise and publications in the fields of immersive design visualisation, human machine interface evaluation, and quality inspection and metrology. Dr Attridge currently manages WMG's metrology and visualisation Centre of Excellence and a number of R&D projects with industrial partners.