November 9, 2023

Dr. LeMoine (and her digital helper) will discuss her research and findings using inclusive design principles to co-design augmented reality-based digital helpers to help with everyday challenges and goals.  The focus of this early-stage study was to understand how to create “good” digital helpers, helpers designed to reduce inequities experienced by autistic teens and young adults as well as others with neurodiversity. The research was conducted at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at UMass Chan Med School and focused on identifying the critical characteristics of 3D digital helpers and with which every day challenges these digital helpers should offer assistance. The work is an early patter in research that establishes inclusively designed software solutions with XR, establishing a new methodology called Partnership Design.  Her own Digital Helper will open the talk and she will share a video of one of the 21 AR Digital Helpers the research established.  This should be an interesting learning event for anyone interested in equity and inclusion, health, computer science, and design.

Dr. Julie LeMoine has worked with applied advanced technology for over 35 years.  She has an undergraduate degree in computer science and a PhD in Inclusive Design and Creative Innovation in which her PhD was XR in Health and Wellbeing: Establishing a New, Inclusively Designed Participatory Practice using Augmented Reality Helpers to Support Teens and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder to Address Life Challenges.  In the first decade of her career, she was a computer security expert, working in this are to help bring the Internet into existence as well as working on projects such as security software for the US Space Shuttle missions and US banking infrastructures.  She moved into interactive engagement and lead the Fidelity Center for Applied Collaboration at their thinktank and brought social computing and 3D gaming into their organization and planning.  She has spent the last 17 years working in applied 3D gaming in regulated industries such as healthcare.  She has co-founded 4 software and service startup companies.  In 2004, she was named a Top 10 Woman to Watch in Technology by Mass High Tech and more recently, one of the 101 Top Women in VR.  Dr LeMoine is now focused on the application of AR, VR, 3D gaming and AI for health and wellbeing as an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Psychiatry at UMass Chan Medical School.  At UMass Chan, she is in the Neurobehavioral Technology group at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center and a co-founder of their InovaXR lab.  She is also the XR-Ed lead at iCELS and a member of the Digital Medicine project.  She is inspired daily by XR and AI and their promise to improve the health and wellbeing of all.

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