Our ancestors… these are colleagues who built this lab with us. Where are they now?
Cynthia Emami (right) was the Lab Manager from August 2020 to August 2022. She is now a PhD student at the Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky. She is on a fully-funded program and also works there as a teaching assistant. Her research interest are Symbolic interactionism, role taking, social inequality and virtual reality.
Princess Anifowose (bottom) was the pioneer Research Assistant at the VHCI lab when it started out in a “basement” at LBS in 2018. She worked with the PI to create a VR game (Beat Saber clone) which was used for a study that was presented at the Technology, Mind and Society Conference in Washington, DC in late 2018. She was also instrumental in the conceptualization of the proposal that won the TWCF grant of $234,000, which signaled the start of the present lab. Princess is currently a student of the department of Public Leadership and Social Enterprise; Pulse, at the Open University Business School; OUBS. Her doctoral research centers on inter-organizational collaborations within an emerging sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem and with a focus on developing economies. She’s also currently a production team assistant for module development at the Pulse department of the OUBS.
For the love of VR, she still hopes for an intersection in the near future with her sustainability interests- perhaps a VR simulation of the end of the world if people don’t take climate change seriously (LOL).
But really to show effects of climate change through virtual reality and particularly within Sub Saharan Africa would be of great learning benefits, and she’d be happy to collaborate with interested VR or sustainability enthusiasts.