In the summer of 2018, I was selected as a 2018 Oculus LaunchPad Fellow. Oculus Launch Pad is a program designed to support promising VR content creators from diverse backgrounds.
In the spring of 2018, I was a teaching assistant and VR cinematographer for the virtual reality class at the University of Illinois, where I assisted students in learning how to develop VR with Unity 3D.
That semester, I also wrote and directed a VR empathy film about homelessness, which was developed with students in Computer Science 498 – Virtual Reality. The film, Friends Without Addresses VR, was submitted to the 2019 Sundance Film Festival as VR Short Film.
Additionally for the virtual reality class, I supervised a team of students that developed a virtual reality meditation application using biofeedback.
During the spring and summer of 2018, I worked with a student startup company, YouMatter Studios, on a VR empathy film about issues of racial justice. You can read about the project in the Chicago Tribune. For more information about the film, please see the GoFundMe page.
In the fall of 2017, I filmed several locations on campus at the University of Illinois in 360 degrees with 8k resolution for Experience Illinois, a virtual reality tour of campus. You can view my films here, the Experience Illinois VR film here and see the highlight on the University’s page here.
During that time, I also worked on a virtual reality empathy-building film based on the experiences of Sandra Bland. Out of respect for the sensitive nature of the film, it will not be released to the public.
In the spring of 2017, I created a virtual restorative environment for my thesis research project which was filmed in Busey Woods in Urbana, Illinois. You can view the virtual nature treatment video here.