Dartmouth Events

Talk Title

Enhancing Access and Support: Interactive VR and AI Systems for Wellbeing and Social Good

Abstract

Emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made significant contributions to various communities and fields, e.g., wellbeing, healthcare, and social good. In this research talk, I present my research in designing and studying interactive and intelligent systems that support users with their physical and psychosocial conditions, highlighting my prior and ongoing research projects and creative practices in interactive VR and AI systems for wellbeing and social good. Specific focuses include micro stress interventions for stress self-management, affective virtual agents for children with autism, and AI-generated assistive cognitive interventions for older adults, and so on. Through the utilization of interactive and intelligent systems, my objective is to enhance users' access to information and support within their social environments. Furthermore, I will briefly introduce some of my recent work involving the utilization of VR and AI for reconstructing cultural heritage and ancient artifacts.

Bio

Dr. Xin Tong is an Assistant Professor of Computation and Design, and a researcher at the Data Science Research Center and Global Health Research Center at Duke Kunshan University (DKU). She is also the founding director of DKU HCI Lab and one of the co-directors in DKU Anthropocene XR Lab. ​​Previously, she was a postdoc fellow affiliated with the Pervasive Wellbeing Technology Lab at Stanford University, and before that, she was a researcher at the Pain Studies Lab. Dr. Tong received her Ph.D. at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Canada, and her Ph.D. dissertation received the “Bill Buxton Canadian Best PhD Dissertation in HCI” award in 2021. Her research areas encompass VR/AI, human-computer interaction (HCI), games, and accessibility, focusing on the larger understanding of how vulnerable populations experience and interact with technologies through varying design approaches and mixed-method research. She has published in many top-tier HCI academic venues, and has served as an editor, organizing committee member, reviewer, associate chair and paper chair for high-impact conferences and journals, such as ACM CHI, CSCW, DIS, CHI Play, IEEE VR, and so on. Dr. Tong is also a recipient of many international, national, and university fellowships and renowned awards.