About

Jason Jerald, PhD is a renowned virtual reality expert with over 20 years of experience in creating virtual reality systems and applications. He has been featured on ABC’s Shark Tank and the Discovery Channel, and his work has been published in the New York Times and on the cover of the MIT Press Journal "Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments." Currently, Jason serves in multiple technical and leadership roles, including CEO of NextGen Interactions and Lead VR Advisor at XMod. He has built and led teams as large as ~300 individuals and regularly speaks at conferences and other programs. He holds numerous publications and patents in the areas of virtual/augmented reality, human-computer interaction, and computer graphics. Jason is the author of "The VR Book: Human-Centered Design for Virtual Reality," which was the #1 best seller at its debut at SIGGRAPH 2015 and continues to be the #1 selling book out of over 1000 books published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. It serves as a standard reference for numerous college courses as well as industry. His specialties include customized XR solutions, strategic advice & technical business planning, software development & hardware integration, human-computer interaction, perception, immersion, & presence, 3D computer graphics & real-time rendering, virtual humans, user studies, team leadership & mentoring, seminar speaking, and training. Jason has worked on over 70 VR projects with over 40 organizations, including Google, Intel, Oculus, Valve, Sixense, Virtuix, AT&T, and NASA Ames Research Center. He has also served on the advisory boards of Sixense and CI Dynamics. Jason has a PhD and MS in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina and a BS in Computer Science from Washington State University. He has also completed programs in public speaking and leadership from Toastmasters International and personal growth from Landmark. Overall, Jason Jerald is a highly experienced and respected virtual reality expert, author, and speaker who has made significant contributions to the field of virtual reality and human-computer interaction.