Throughout her wide-ranging career, every time Anna Queiroz encountered a new field of work or study, she asked herself the same questions: Is there a better way to do this? How do emotions play a role in this?

A New Take on Leadership

When Anna graduated in psychology and while completing her MBA, she co-founded her own company that taught people how to use their emotions to become better leaders. She ditched the old-fashioned seminars and designed a weekend-long, in-person, immersive experience where trainees simulated running their own businesses—facing challenges and obstacles designed to evoke strong emotions mirroring those encountered in real-world professional settings.

Through these emotionally charged scenarios, trainees were encouraged to reflect on their behavior, identify areas for improvement, and develop personalized strategies for change by tapping into their emotional responses rather than relying solely on theoretical concepts.

“Working with entrepreneurs and being an entrepreneur myself, I realized that leadership was highly related to emotions, and that the traditional training methods did not tap into that,” she said. “To really elicit behavioral changes, we would need to tap into emotions.”

Elevating Connection Through Technology

At each step of her career, which has taken her from her native Brazil to the United States, Anna has tried to improve education and people’s emotional well-being using an ever-growing list of interactive technologies. Now, she’s bringing that mission to the University of Miami, where she received a joint appointment as a core faculty member at the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) and as an Associate Professor of Interactive Media in the School of Communication.

“I’m interested in the process, not the technology itself or one specific topic, but in how we learn and how we connect with the topic or with others through technology,” she said.

Anna, who started her dual appointment in August, has already joined teams at UM working on immersive, interactive education programs. But given her broad range of expertise, she is hoping to collaborate with researchers in different schools across UM.

Kim Grinfeder, the department chair of interactive media in the School of Communication and director of Creative Technologies at IDSC, said he’s thrilled to have Anna’s unique vision and experience on his team.

“Anna’s innovative work on using VR for climate change education and enhancing learning experiences aligns perfectly with our department’s mission.”

“With her extensive expertise in immersive technologies and impactful research, Anna will be a tremendous asset as we continue to explore the future of media and education,” Grinfeder said. “Her innovative work on using VR for climate change education and enhancing learning experiences aligns perfectly with our department’s mission.”

Combining Two Passions

Anna was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and was three years old when her family moved to a small village built for workers constructing a dam near the country’s iconic Iguazú Falls. Her father was an engineer on the project, so she was raised in that small community surrounded by friends, forests, and wildlife. “I had no idea how nice it was until I left,” she said.

She left the village for college and after starting her training company, scholars took notice of her innovative approach to leadership development and invited her to teach entrepreneurship and psychology at universities in São Paulo. As a professor, she realized that although students were highly engaged with their studies, some lacked crucial concepts they should have gained in high school. And as she dedicated extra hours to support these students, she realized the power of emotions in driving learning, and the crescent media use among all age groups. So, she decided to focus her research on how media could support learning. She earned her master’s degree in educational psychology and her Ph.D. in learning sciences from the University of São Paulo. Then, when her husband got a job offer in the United States, she joined him and found a place where she could bring all those skills together.

With immersive technologies, changing behavior and supporting learning through emotions can be done more rigorously, and at scale.

With virtual reality entering the domestic market, Anna experienced how powerful this technology was in triggering emotions, and saw the opportunity to extend what she was doing in her former company: change behavior and support learning through emotions. However, with immersive technologies, it could be done more rigorously and at scale. Because of her innovative work in VR for education, she was invited to start the first systemic effort to incorporate VR technologies into the classroom at Stanford University, joining the Virtual Human Interaction Lab while she was still in her Ph.D.

“VR is a powerful medium to help people learn and care about the environment.”

Climate change education is a lifelong passion of Anna’s due to her upbringing surrounded by Brazil’s wildlife. So, she dedicated herself to implementing high-standard, evidence-based virtual reality for environmental education in informal learning settings, such as libraries, museums, community centers, and communities that could not afford the technology but would greatly benefit from it. “VR is a powerful medium to help people learn and care about the environment,” she said.

Anna directed a first-of-its-kind research project that pulled VR data from users around the world—including Canada, the United Kingdom, and Denmark—to improve existing VR systems. After collecting evidence on how VR can be effective at scale, she focused on fundraising to implement social impact projects in vulnerable areas in Brazil, and partnered with non-profit organizations and the government to enhance environmental education through VR. In this project, Anna has already brought immersive experiences to more than 25,000 kids, and the project earned her an award from the Stanford King Center on Global Development.

All this work landed Anna a second appointment working for the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, where she led projects investigating how immersive technologies can support the future of education and work.

An Innovation-Conducive Environment

Now living in Miami with her husband and two children, Anna found resemblances of what she had in her childhood: friendly people, collaborative colleagues, wildlife, and tropical weather, and she couldn’t be more content.

At UM, she has already joined the team that develops and updates UMverse, the university’s program to integrate VR into classrooms and research. She’s also applying for grants to work on various climate change education programs, and she’s excited to collaborate with other researchers and faculty.

In addition to her research and collaborations, Anna is committed to sharing her knowledge with students. This fall, she is teaching “Immersive Storytelling,” a course that introduces students to the latest developments in immersive technologies and their applications in various fields. Through evidence-based design, Anna is guiding students in crafting compelling narratives that evoke emotions and inspire action.

In the spring, she’ll offer “Meaningful Connections,” a course that explores the complex interplay between media, relationships, and identity. Anna will explore practical strategies for using media to create meaningful and authentic interactions, drawing on her expertise in immersive technologies and emotions. By examining the ways in which media can shape our perceptions of self and others, Anna aims to equip students with the tools to navigate the digital landscape with intention and purpose.

In each case, Anna said she’ll continue asking hard questions to ensure the technologies we’re using are improving our ability to learn, communicate, connect with others, and collaborate.

“I follow my heart,” she said.

 

 

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Story by Alan Gomez | alanrgomez.com