Jeremy Bailenson

Bailenson is the founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Thomas More Storke Professor in the Department of Communication, Professor (by courtesy) of Education, Professor (by courtesy) Program in Symbolic Systems, a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and a Faculty Leader at Stanford’s Center for Longevity.

Bailenson studies the psychology of Virtual Reality (VR), in particular how virtual experiences lead to changes in perceptions of self and others. His lab builds and studies systems that allow people to meet in virtual space, and explores the changes in the nature of social interaction. His most recent research focuses on how VR can transform education, environmental conservation, empathy, and health. It is in this capacity, that Bailenson is involved in an advisory role at Mursion.

He has published more than 100 academic papers, in interdisciplinary journals such as Science and PLoS One, as well domain-specific journals in the fields of communication, computer science, education, environmental science, law, marketing, medicine, political science, and psychology. Bailenson consults pro bono on VR policy for government agencies including the State Department, the US Senate, Congress, the California Supreme Court, the Federal Communication Committee, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the National Research Council, and the National Institutes of Health. His book Infinite Reality, co-authored with Jim Blascovich, was quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court outlining the effects of immersive media.

William Follette

Dr. William C. Follette received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Washington with additional specialty training in research design and quantitative psychology. Dr. Follette is a full professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has served as a member of multiple grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health. Additionally, he has been a participant in several scientific conferences sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Follette has more than 200 academic papers, book chapters and presentations at professional conferences.

One of the areas of special interest to Dr. Follette is the study of how individuals learn complex social skills which is one of the reasons Mursion is pleased to have him as a member of our advisory board. In some instances how to interact with clients or customers is prescribed by policies and procedures. However, in many other situations people must be flexible in how they behave in order to be effective. In those instances, being effective in interactions with others requires that one be able to discriminate the impact one is having on others in real time during an interaction and change one’s behavior to become more effective if they are not achieving the targeted goal. Dr. Follette has developed strategies to track whether people are skillful at assessing their impact during an actual interaction with another person, and if not, provide immediate feedback so that people can alter their behavior to become effective. Using procedures he has devised in his own research, he is able to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback to individuals in training about their strengths and weaknesses in adapting their behavior to meet specific goals.

Scott N. Compton

Compton, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience. Dr. Compton’s interest in advising Mursion is fueled by his interest in how to leverage technology to evaluate and improve complex interpersonal behaviors informed by basic principles of human behavior.

Dr. Compton’s other research interests have focused broadly on child and adolescent psychotherapy treatment development and evaluation, with particular interest in pediatric anxiety and depressive disorders; multi-site comparative treatment trials; and translating efficacious treatments into community settings. Dr. Compton’s more general research interests include behavioral theory, philosophy of science, analysis of outcome studies and longitudinal data; clinical trial outcome research and design, and mental health policy issues relevant to clinical practice.

Alex "Sandy" Pentland

Pentland directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics labs and previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and the Media Lab Asia in India. Some of his focuses include Machine Learning, Human Computer Interactions, Data, and Pattern Recognition. He is one of the most-cited scientists in the world, and Forbes recently declared him one of the "7 most powerful data scientists in the world" along with Google founders and the Chief Technical Officer of the United States.

He has received numerous awards and prizes such as the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review, the 40th Anniversary of the Internet from DARPA, and the Brandeis Award for work in privacy. Some of his publications are Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter, Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread - the Lessons from a New Science, and Honest Signals, that explores the subtle patterns that reveal unconscious social signals. Pentland advises Mursion in areas related to constructs and automated analytical measures that are potential indicators of human performance in simulations.

Chris Dede

Dede (Harvard University Graduate School of Education) is a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. His fundamental interest is in developing new types of educational systems to meet the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. His research focuses on emerging technologies for learning and assessment, leadership in educational technology implementation, and effective policy for educational technology utilization. His focus in emerging technologies includes multi-user virtual environments, augmented realities, transformed social interaction, and online professional development.

Dede advises Mursion in the area of instructional design, assisting with the fundamentals of creating simulations within which human performance can be measured and altered.