Biographies

Dr. Albert "Skip" Rizzo
Associate Director - Institute for Creative Technologies Research Professor - Psychiatry/Gerontology
University of Southern California

Albert “Skip” Rizzo received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is an Associate Director at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (Medical Virtual Reality) and has Research Professor appointments with the USC Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and at the USC School of Gerontology. Dr. Rizzo conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment and rehabilitation. This work spans the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. In the psychological domain, his latest project has focused on the translation of the graphic assets from the Xbox game, Full Spectrum Warrior, into an exposure therapy application for combat-related PTSD with Iraq War veterans. He is also working with a team that is creating artificially intelligent virtual patients that clinicians can use to practice skills required for challenging clinical interviews and diagnostic assessments (sexual assault, resistant patients, suicide lethality, etc.). His cognitive work has addressed the use of VR applications to test and train attention, memory, visuospatial abilities and executive function. In the motor domain, he has developed VR Game systems to address physical rehabilitation post stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury and for those aging with a disability (currently funded by NIDRR). He is also investigating the use of VR for pain distraction at LA Children’s Hospital and is currently designing game-based VR scenarios to address issues of concern with children having autistic spectrum disorder. His research also involves designing and evaluating 3D User Interface devices and interaction methods and he has created a graduate level Industrial and Systems Engineering course at USC entitled, “Human Factors and Integrated Media Systems”. In the area of Gerontology, Dr. Rizzo has served as the program director of the USC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and is currently conducting a VR study of visuospatial and wayfinding ability with persons with Alzheimer’s.

He is the associate editor of the journals, CyberPsychology and Behavior; and The International Journal of Virtual Reality, is Senior Editor of the MIT Press journal, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, is on a number of editorial boards for journals in the areas of cognition and computer technology (Cognitive Technology; Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds; Media Psychology) and is the creator of the Virtual Reality Mental Health Email Listserve (VRPSYCH). He has recently guest-edited theme issues for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback on “VR and Psychophysiology”, two new journal issues on “Virtual Rehabilitation” (in CyberPsychology and Behavior and in the International Journal on Disability and Human Development) and one for the MIT journal Presence:Teleoperators and Virtual Environments on "Virtual Reality and Neuropsychology". Previously, he guest edited a theme issue in CyberPsychology and Behavior on “Aging and Information Technology”. He served as General Chair for the IEEE VR2003 conference in Los Angeles and co-chaired this conference in 2004. He was also the Conference Chair of the 4th Annual Workshop on Virtual Rehabilitation on Catalina Island, Los Angeles in Sept. of 2005. He was awarded the Laval International Virtual Reality “Best Medical Application” in 2008 for “Virtual Iraq” and has recently received the Mensa L.A. Chapter’s first Intellectual Leadership Award (http://uscnews.usc.edu/science_technology/rizzo_honored_for_virtual_reality_innovations.html). In his spare time, he plays rugby, listens to music and rides his motorcycle.