Denise Quesnel

Denise has dedicated her career to the exploration of profound emotional shifts that can occurs through interaction with immersive, multisensory artistic artefacts and technological experiences. She is a researcher of the immersive realities, specifically creation and design of virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) content and interfaces for profound emotional shifts, like awe and wonder.

After spending over a decade in the film and VFX industry, she founded an immersive R&D studio, worked in University research departments, and is now a PhD student with the iSpace Lab at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology. A great deal of her artistic and work experience feeds into her motivation around understanding how emotional shifts combined with technology can help facilitate compassion, understanding, interconnectivity for ourselves, one another, and our planet.

In addition to her day to day work, Denise is an active volunteer with service to the global community. After years of forming local communities, she created a new Immersive Realities technical and cultural program at the annual non-profit SIGGRAPH conference in 2015. SIGGRAPH is the world’s largest computer graphics (CG) and interactive techniques event, and Denise has now guided this program with is physical space, VR Village, into its third year as one of the most popular immersive programs in the world, while also mentoring dozens of students, artists, and practitioners. She is also heavily involved in volunteer service in non-profit organizations responsible for advocacy and policy-making in the health care and technological fields on a national and international level.