Dr. John Besley  – Thursday, March 23rd, 2023

Talk Description

Dr. John C. Besley will share key ideas from his recently released book, Strategic Science Communication (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022, with Anthony Dudo). This book seeks to help bridge the gap between science communication research and practice. For science and risk communicators, he’ll highlight the strategic value of drawing on research into behavior change and trust to help (a) identify concrete, audience-specific behavioral goals, as well as (b) specific cognitive and affective communication objectives aimed at achieving those goals. He will also discuss the importance of delaying decisions about tactics until after choices about objectives. For communication researchers, he’ll also discuss the potential value of conducting more research that either helps communicators make smarter choices or helps communication strategists understand how communicators choose goals, objectives, and tactics. 

The presentation will draw on Dr. Besley’s extensive research into understanding how scientists think about science communication, as well as efforts to outline how social science theory might be used to help scientists think more strategically about their communication choices. This work involves surveys of over 30,000 scientists, interviews with more than 150 scientists and other stakeholders from across the scientific community, and participation in a range of projects aimed at enhancing science communication training and strategic thinking. 

Bio 

Dr. Besley is among the most cited and published science communication/public engagement scholars in the world with more than 100 peer reviewed articles and other reports, as well as funding from a range of governmental (NSF, USDA, etc.) and foundation sources (Kavli, Rita Allen, Chan/Zuckerberg, etc.). He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University (2006) , is the associate editor for risk communication for the journal Risk Analysis, and is on the editorial boards of Science Communication, Environmental Communication, Public Understanding of Science, the Journal of Science Communication, and the Journal of Risk Research. 

Dr. Francisco R. Ortega – Thursday, March 2nd, 2023

Talk Description 

Forest bathing is the practice of immersing oneself in a natural environment through sensory experiences for stress relief and mental resource restoration. Forest bathing offers numerous positive effects that can improve people’s mental health; however, many individuals who are in the most need of stress reduction benefits often lack access to nature, such as those in hospitals, nursing homes, and large cities. Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to increase accessibility to the benefits of nature by delivering immersive nature simulations that provide similar benefits. To create an effective virtual nature environment (VNE), research is needed on the components of a natural environment that make forest bathing effective. Additionally, a key issue with creating VNEs is making them deployable on accessible, everyday VR headsets, such as the Oculus Quest 2. This talk will discuss the results from an initial experiment showing the potential of biomass, or living green nature, as an essential component for the restorative effect. The talk will also cover a follow-up experiment on the importance of biomass realism, or the fidelity of the plant life, on restorative effects, as less complex assets may be more feasible for deploying on everyday VR devices. 

Bio 

Francisco R. Ortega is an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University (CSU) and Director of the Natural User Interaction lab (NUILAB). Dr. Ortega earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science (CS) with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) from Florida International University (FIU), under the guidance of Dr. Naphtali Rishe and Dr. Armando Barreto. He also held the position of Post-Doc and Visiting Assistant Professor position at Florida International University between February 2015 and July 2018. His research has focused on multimodal and unimodal interaction (gesture-centric), which includes gesture recognition and elicitation (e.g., a form of participatory design). His main research area focuses on improving user interaction by (a) multimodal elicitation, (b) developing interactive techniques, and (c) improving augmented reality visualization techniques. The primary domains for interaction include immersive analytics, assembly, Navy use cases, and collaborative environments using augmented reality headsets.

His research has resulted in over 76 peer-reviewed publications, including books, journals, conferences, workshops, and magazine articles, in venues such as IEEE TVCG, ACM PACMHCI, ACM ISS, ACM SUI, and IEEE 3DUI, among others. He is the first author of Interaction Design for 3D User Interfaces: The World of Modern Input Devices for Research, Applications, and Game Development book by CRC Press.  Dr. Ortega has experience with multiple government-funded projects. For example, Dr. Ortega was a co-PI for the DARPA Communicating with Computers project. He is currently a PI for a 3-year effort for ONR titled Perceptual/Cognitive Aspects of Augmented Reality: Experimental Research and a Computational Model.

He was recently awarded a new ONR grant titled Assessing Cognitive Load and Managing Extraneous Load to Optimize Training. The National Science Foundation has also funded him and is a sub-awardee for an ONR project from Virtual Reality Rehab. Since his initial tenure-track appointment at CSU from August 2018 to August 2022, Dr. Ortega has brought over 3.3 million dollars in external funding (2.8 million dollars as principal investigator.) Recently, Dr. Ortega has been recommended for the financing of the NSF CAREER starting in 2023. Ultimately, Dr. Ortega is dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion, and his goal is to increase the representation of underrepresented minorities in the field of computer science.