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Elevating Student Voices:
The Emerging Media Colloquium Becomes a Symposium Series
In Fall 2024, Associate Professor Ana Herruzo transformed the Emerging Media Colloquium into something more than just a graduate course—it became a dynamic, student-led symposium series exploring the cutting edge of Immersive Experience Design and Extended Reality (XR). Hosted at the ASU MIX Center in downtown Mesa, the six-week-long public event invited the community to join a critical dialogue on the future of immersive media, spotlighting graduate students as emerging thought leaders.
PHOTO GALLERY
FORMAT
Running from October 21 through December 2, the symposium featured seven public panels, each curated and moderated by students in the class. These discussions addressed timely topics such as accessibility in XR, ethics in immersive design, spatial audio, the role of AI in creative industries, and the transition from flat media to virtual environments. Each panel was followed by an audience Q&A, transforming the MIX Center’s Theater 201 into a space for open reflection, debate, and inspiration.
SHAPING THE FUTURE OF XR
The impact of the symposium was felt across the MIX Center community and beyond. Not only did the series draw in students, faculty, industry professionals, and local creatives—it also demonstrated the importance of public engagement in shaping the ethical, accessible, and inclusive future of immersive technologies. By positioning students as both learners and leaders, the colloquium empowered them to voice concerns, share innovations, and challenge assumptions. Plans are already underway to expand this format in future semesters, continuing to build a collaborative, critical, and student-driven culture around immersive experience design at ASU.
A PLATFORM FOR COLLABORATION, DISCOURSE & DISCOVERY
Designed as both a professional development initiative and a recruitment tool for ASU’s graduate programs in emerging media, the symposium exemplified the values at the heart of the Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center. It brought together partners across The Design School (TDS), the School of Arts, Media and Engineering (AME), and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (HIDA), with the shared goal of building critical discourse and creating a platform for new perspectives.
Students in the Emerging Media Colloquium were challenged to not only explore advanced topics within immersive technology but also to become facilitators of dialogue, reaching beyond academia to engage the broader public. Through panel moderation, curation, and public speaking, students gained valuable experience as communicators and advocates within their fields. The series reflected a shift in graduate education—away from siloed learning and toward interdisciplinary leadership, community connection, and active shaping of the industry’s future.
SENSORY GARDEN
PANEL 1:
PANEL 2:
Can XR improve the educational outcomes of students?
PANEL 3:
Designing for Everyone: Addressing Accessibility in Immersive Experience Design
Navigating the Next Frontier with Ethics in XR
Moderator: Vedika Bhasin
Panelists: Sparrow Dineen, Orion Dobos, Kacy Hatfield, Anish Powar, Hemanth Kontham
Date: Oct. 21
As immersive technologies like extended reality (XR) integrate into everyday life, ethical considerations become increasingly complex for both developers and companies. This talk will explore the ethical dilemmas surrounding XR, particularly regarding consent in data collection and user experience, while examining emerging technologies like AI and decentralization as potential solutions.
XR experiences, prevalent in industries such as healthcare, gaming, entertainment, and education, raise significant concerns about transparency, informed consent, and data security, especially given the accessibility of users' physical, emotional, and psychological states. The immersive nature of XR introduces both opportunities for innovation and risks, including psychological distress and exposure to harmful content.
Moderator: William Jesse Martinez
Panelists: Alba Olive Marti, Anishika John, Yan Rong, Michael Searle, Lou Shi, Anish Powar
Date: Oct. 28
The relevance and applications of Extended Reality technologies (XR) will likely continue to increase throughout the world in the following decades, mimicking the exponential spread of current mobile communication devices. However, there are several barriers for this technology to truly become a part of daily living. Whether it be cost, public opinion, or hardware functionality, the shift from industry use to wide-scale public acquisition may take several decades. Despite this, the possibilities of XR in various fields such as entertainment, education, training, etc. continue to grow and should be critically assessed now to determine what factors are most important for their effectiveness.
Moderator: Julianna Piechowicz Monteiro
Panelists: Kirti Ashok Jain, Yumeng Jia, Marisa Costagliola, Pranshi Jindal
Date: Nov. 4
Many are familiar with the term accessibility, but what does it truly mean? Traditionally, accessibility ensures that a product or experience is usable to everyone, providing them with equal opportunities, regardless of their level of ability or circumstance. As technology advances and users' needs evolve, the meaning of accessibility must also adapt. It is no longer just about physical access, it is about creating experiences that are inclusive, engaging, and designed to meet diverse user needs. As these emerging technologies open doors for creating interactive opportunities and interfaces, they raise critical questions about how to ensure they are available for all users. Designers and artists must rethink their approach to accessibility in virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality environments.
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PANEL 4:
Navigating the Next Frontier with Ethics in XR
Moderator: Mikale Kaminer
Panelists: Lydia Cabasco, Sriraj Rajkumar, Jesus Franco Yescas, Michael Shaughnessy, Celia Yang
Date: Nov. 25
As the field of immersive audio experience becomes inundated with varying workflows, use cases, and methods of implementation - accurate quantitative measurements and research to support effectiveness and standardization of practices in such forms of subjective media are particular sources of debate for many professionals within the industry. The question concerning the effectiveness of immersive audio implementations remains a largely unexplored area of research. The effect of audio on the experience in virtual reality in their research, determining the effectiveness of music performed over ambition and Dolby Atmos environments and the effect of audio on virtual reality experiences, respectively, result in inconclusiveness in preference or effective standardizations that consistently point towards a necessity of further research and understanding of such topics.
PANEL 5:
Can XR improve the educational outcomes of students?
Moderator: Yannie Szeto
Panelists: Faith Popov, Zesheng Wang, Elizabeth Leung, Hajin Ahn, Smit Vrajlal Tarpara
Date: Nov. 18
This discussion will explore the transition from flat media, like videography, photography, and graphic design, where content is presented on 2D surfaces such as screens or paper, into the world of extended reality (XR). We’ll look at how skills from flat media can be adapted for immersive environments and address the unique challenges and opportunities XR presents.
PANEL 6:
Designing for Everyone: Addressing Accessibility in Immersive Experience Design
Moderator: Lilliana Lopez
Panelists: Jo Peterson, Nancy Zuo, Micaiah Wiafe, Odinchezo Nwosu, Hsin-Yu Chang, Olivia Reyes
Date: Dec. 2
From art to code, artificial intelligence has become a key part of our creative and technological projects--whether we like it or not. AI has grown so fast, that regulations on it are struggling to keep up, with heated debates on the ethics of using AI being brought into question. More and more companies are choosing to employ AI prompters to generate images instead of creating them, taking jobs away from the artists who create the very images that AI is trained with. How do we stop this from happening? Can we find a middle ground, continuing to use AI as a tool instead of replacing artists? How have artists already been affected by this in the XR and video game industry?