Category

Graduation

Jan 14 2022
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Dr. Xin Tong Earns a Doctorate, Postdoc at Stanford, and Canada’s Bill Buxton Award

By | Research, Awards, Graduation

In 2021, the Pain Studies Lab member Dr. Xin Tong had 3 significant achievements:

  1. she earned her Ph.D.,
  2. was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship affiliated with the Pervasive Wellbeing Technology Lab at Stanford University, and
  3. was the recipient of Canada’s prestigious Bill Buxton Best Canadian HCI Dissertation Award.
    This award recognizes the most outstanding doctoral dissertation completed at a Canadian university in the field of Human-Computer Interaction.

The Pain Studies Lab’s most recent Ph.D. graduate is Dr. Tong, is currently an Assistant Professor in Computation and Design at Duke Kunshan University (DKU).

Dr. Tong’s dissertation, Bodily Resonance: Exploring the Effects of Virtual Embodiment on Pain Modulation and the Fostering of Empathy toward Pain Sufferers, combined both technical and human aspects of research to explore how virtual embodiment — through the use of VR technology — can affect people’s perception of pain and address the biological, psychological and social challenges that chronic pain patients face. This work identifies factors that impact the effect of VR embodiment on pain, including features of avatars, combinations of multiple modalities to communicate pain, and the integration of narratives into games.

Findings from Dr. Tong’s studies led to a series of important design recommendations for using embodied VR to generate empathy. Building on those results, Dr. Tong proposes Bodily Resonance, a design framework for pain and VR for empathy. The framework connects the real body that is in pain, the VR content, the illusion of presence in the virtual world and the narrative to mediate the perception of pain and empathy.

Aug 13 2017
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Congratulations to Pain Studies Lab’s Graduating Researchers !!!

By | Graduation, Lab Updates
One of the perks of earning a Ph.D.: the Renaissance-style caps.
Here, freshly minted Dr. Jeffrey Gunther and Dr. Mark Nazemi with SIAT Associate Director Dr. Chris Shaw.

Mark Nazemi

Before earning his Ph.D., Mark Nazemi served as a long-time Research Assistant (RA) in the Pain Studies Lab. There, he contributed his formidable talent in music and sound design to VR systems developed for chronic and acute pain, and to the lab’s numerous research studies. Notably, Mark verified what Dr. Gromala suspected: that chronic pain sufferers may have sensitivities to certain sounds. https://www.sfu.ca/fcat/blog/fall-2013/mark-nazemi.html

Mark’s senior supervisor was Dr. Diane Gromala and his committee members were sound walk pioneer and SFU faculty member Dr. Barry Truax and psychophysiologist Dr. Steven Barnes from UBC. Dr. Jillian Scott, a notable expert in the transdisciplinary field of art, science and technology interactions served as the external examiner at Mark’s defence. https://www.jillscott.org/

Mark Nazemi’s Ph.D. thesis title: Soundscapes as Therapy: An Innovative Approach to Chronic Pain and Anxiety Management

Most recently, Mark founded the R&D start-up company, Intentions Lab where he explores “the different ways we can use sound and technology to develop non-invasive ways of reducing anxiety and pain.”

http://theintentionslab.com/
http://www.solidbass.com/

Ashfaq Amin with a version of mobile VR.
We’re not sure why it tested so well compared to much more expensive VR displays, but we suspect that one factor might be that immersants use their own smartphones. Stay tuned for more research results!
AshFaq Amin

After working for several years as a UXUI designer, Ashfaq Amin joined SIAT and earned a Master of Science degree (MSc). As an RA in the Pain Studies Lab, Ash conducted studies about Mobile VR, otherwise known as “Cardboard VR.”

This form of VR display uses a smartphone and is comparatively inexpensive — and thus more accessible than popular VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) such as the Oculus Rift or HTC VIVE.

Surprisingly, participants in Ash’s research studies found that their VR experiences using mobile VR were nearly equal to their experiences in more expensive VR displays. Ash conducted studies among chronic pain patients (plus a control group) in one study, and among “healthy” users in another study.

Ash’s peer-reviewed papers were extraordinarily popular online, capturing the attention of hundreds as soon as they were posted.

Ashfaq Amin’s MSc. thesis title: Effectiveness of Mobile Virtual Reality as a Means for Pain Distraction

Ash now has a nifty UXUI job in Toronto.
http://ashfaqamin.com/

Ashfaq Amin with Dr. Chris Shaw.