StoryCode LA #9: Skip Rizzo, Director of Medical Virtual Reality, USC ICT

On August 19th, virtual reality pioneer Skip Rizzo is coming to StoryCode LA to talk about VR medicine and the future of psychology. This is going to be an incredible session—come by, bring your friends, and connect with the growing group of artists and technologists who make up LA's StoryCode community.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/8/0/3/600_439230723.jpeg

Psychologist Skip Rizzo has spent the last 13 years creating groundbreaking VR work that exists at the intersection of art, technology and medicine. His most famous VR experiences, "Virtual Iraq" and "Virtual Afghanistan" are therapeutic applications meant to help soldiers confront and conquer their PTSD. Essentially video games in which players can't shoot back, "Virtual Iraq" and "Virtual Afghansitan" allow returned service members a safe way to re-experience, and thus resolve, their most traumatic experiences.

See "Virtual Iraq" in action in this piece from PBS's "Frontline" directed by Douglas Rushkoff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkTHba0XM2c

Over the years, "Virtual Iraq" and "Virtual Afghanistan" have attracted a huge amount of media attention: they've been covered by news outlets like Vice and the New Yorker; have been used as a plot points in the cop show "Rizzoli and Isles"; and have been depicted in the video art of Harun Farocki. But the "Virtual" series is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Skip's ambitious work. This is going to be an amazing night, and a great opportunity to connect to directly with one of the most unique creators working in virtual reality today. I look forward to seeing you all there.

Kel

About Albert "Skip" Rizzo

Psychologist Skip Rizzo--whose work using virtual reality-based exposure therapy to treat PTSD received the American Psychological Association’s 2010 Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Treatment of Trauma--is the associate director for medical virtual reality at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He also holds research professor appointments with the USC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Rizzo is working with a team that is creating artificially intelligent virtual patients that clinicians can use to practice skills required for challenging clinical interviews and diagnostic assessments. His cognitive work has addressed the use of VR applications to test and train attention, memory, visuospatial abilities and executive function. In the motor domain, he has developed VR game systems to address physical rehabilitation post stroke and traumatic brain injury and for prosthetic use training. He is currently designing VR scenarios to address social and vocational interaction in persons with autistic spectrum disorder. Rizzo is currently examining the use of VR applications for training emotional coping skills with the aim of preparing service members for the stresses of combat. He is senior editor of the MIT Press journal, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. He also sits on a number of editorial boards for journals in the areas of cognition and computer technology (Cognitive Technology; Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds; Media Psychology) and is the creator of the Virtual Reality Mental Health Email Listserve (VRPSYCH).