Associate Professor Heide Lukosch, Applied Immersive Gaming Initiative (AIGI) lead, UC Engineering, says applied games are games that not only want to entertain, like Snakes & Ladders, Pokémon Go, or Animal Crossing. Applied games can be used to teach children maths skills, support managers to make decisions, and help people to understand difficult or alien issues, such as the challenges people with disabilities face in their lives.
Based in the HIT Lab NZ, an international, multidisciplinary research lab which delivers
postgraduate degrees from ground-breaking research at University of Canterbury (UC), she
also works with the UC School of Product Design, which offers a Bachelor’s degree majoring
in Applied Immersive Game Design.
In her upcoming UC Connect public lecture, How to
use applied immersive games for education, work and wonder, she will explain how immersive
technologies in computer games – such as virtual or augmented reality – make games very
powerful tools as they allow people to take over roles, step into environments, and allow
for actions that are normally not possible.
Aviation, transportation, health and
education are domains that have already been using both immersive technologies and games for
a long time.
“I research how to design engaging and effective training environments
in which humans can be prepared for complex real-life situations. One example of an applied
immersive game would be a virtual flight simulator where one can step into the role of a
pilot, flying over a virtual landscape, and earning badges for every successful mission
completed,” Associate Professor Lukosch says.
“In my research, I aim to understand
how both virtual and augmented reality techniques can be combined to produce realistic
experiences that can help people and organisations dealing with real-world
problems.”
Associate Professor Heide Lukosch, AIGI Lead, is a social and media
scientist, whose disciplines include information technology, game design, virtual reality,
augmented reality, and human-computer interaction. Dr Lukosch works together with local and
international academics, as well as with organisations and game developers to answer her
research questions, and to support organisations with game-based solutions on the interplay
with the games industry.
She lived and worked in Germany and the Netherlands before
moving to New Zealand to take up a role leading AIGI at the University of Canterbury. She
has designed over 20 analogue and digital applied games for research and learning, driven by
her interest in understanding how games should be designed to have an impact on people,
organisations, and society. She is also a dedicated player of board and digital games, and a
gardener, reader, yogi, and mother of two children. She enjoys living with her family in the
south of Christchurch, and usually commutes by e-bike to the HIT Lab NZ at UC.
UC
Connect public lecture: How to use applied immersive games for education, work and wonder,
Associate Professor Heide Lukosch, AIGI Lead, UC Engineering, University of Canterbury, 7pm
– 8pm, Wednesday 29 July, C block lecture theatres, Ilam campus, Christchurch. Register to
attend free at: www.canterbury.ac.nz/ucconnect
Media
contacts:
· Associate Professor Heide Lukosch, heide.lukosch@canterbury.ac.nz,
Phone: +6433691309
· UC
Communications team, media@canterbury.ac.nz,
Ph: (03) 369 3631 or 027 503 0168
View the event website for more information.
You should be present for the whole duration of this event.
Associate Professor Heide Lukosch, AIGI Lead, is a social and media scientist, whose disciplines include information technology, game design, virtual reality, augmented reality, and human-computer interaction. Dr Lukosch works together with local and international academics, as well as with organisations and game developers to answer her research questions, and to support organisations with game-based solutions on the interplay with the games industry.
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