Today's discussion features Courtney D. Cogburn and Jeremy Bailenson. Courtney is an Associate Professor of Social Work at Columbia University, Courtney is on the faculty of the Columbia Population Research Center and a faculty affiliate of the Center on African American Politics and Society and the Data Institute. Courtney's work focuses on the ways that society characterizes and measures racism, the effects of cultural racism in media, as well as the effects of racism on cultural inequalities in health. Jeremy Bailenson is a Thomas More Storke Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, and is also the Founding Director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Jeremy studies the psychology of Virtual and Augmented Reality, specifically how virtual experiences lead to changes in perceptions of self and others. Jeremy's work predominantly focuses on important social and behavioral issues including climate change, homelessness, and now, racism.

Courtney and Jeremy join the broadcast to talk about their collaboration on "1000 Cut Journey" an immersive virtual reality experience, that allows participants of the experience, to become Michael Sterling, a fictional black male character, as he encounters racism as a young child, an adolescent, and a young adult. The world premier of the experience was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival Virtual Arcade in 2018, as well as at the New Orleans Film Festival Cinema Reset in 2018.

Items discussed:

-how VR can be used as a lever on very difficult problems by merging technology and very carefully constructed narratives based on empirical data

-the transdisciplinary approach to merging different studies of research and thought

-the specific power of virtual reality, the true nature of VR as an experience that you can walk away with, and the implications of these experiences to understanding, visualizing, and creating new perspective can be used to change everything from policing to policy

-Learnings from working on the project, and future uses of virtual reality to bridge the gaps of understanding of the many complexities of racism, while motivating audiences to act on racism and racial injustices.

Thank you for listening!

Full Simply Tech LIVE Video Broadcast: https://youtu.be/EQKNkSbd3ik

Ways to contact Courtney and Jeremy:

Courtney D. Cogburn: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty/full-time/courtney-d-cogburn/

Jeremy Bailenson: https://comm.stanford.edu/faculty-bailenson/

Resources:

1000 Cut Journey trailer: https://youtu.be/rA6fOMSx2yk

Experiencing Racism in VR | Courtney D. Cogburn, PHD | TEDxRVA: https://youtu.be/M7T_u4hpiSE

Infinite Reality: The Dawn of the Virtual Revolution with Jeremy Bailenson: https://youtu.be/1jbwxR8bCb4

Additional Work Mentioned:

Albert "Skip" Rizzo: https://ict.usc.edu/profile/albert-skip-rizzo/

Fernanda Herrera: https://iriss.stanford.edu/people/fernanda-herrera

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