Judges for the Awards

Our judges come from UK universities and organisations including Snap, Soluis, Wales Millennium Centre, Arup, Imagination, Venice Immersive, Belfast XR Festival, and more, including our Advisory Board and Academic Working Group.

Judges

Gaëlle Mourre
Writer, director and producer

Gaëlle is an award winning Creative Writer, Director and Producer, a Keynote Speaker and an Immersive Experience Mentor. She is the founder of Fat Red Bird production company, one of CreaTech's 100 Ones to Watch 2021-2022, Digital Catapult Nominee "From Startup to Scaleup" and p...

Josh Gregg
Innovation Technologies Specialist

Josh Gregg is the Innovation Technologies Specialist at HELIX, the University of Leeds. Designed to enhance student education, HELIX offers cutting-edge digital provision, including immersive technologies and multimedia production studios, as well as a physical makerspace. Ou...

Jack Hardiker-Bresson
Artist, creative director and researcher

Jack Hardiker-Bresson leads the collaborative practice ‘Office of Everyone’ (www.officeofeveryone.com), working with both established and emergent creative techniques to tell unexpected and undervalued stories. Jack is also a Tutor (Research) on the Digital Direction programm...

Maf’j Alvarez
Artist

Maf’j Alvarez is a UK-based visual artist, UX designer, and creative technologist from Brighton. She produces poetic VR works in Unity3D at Root Interactive and is the founder of Inkibit Immersive. She is digital arts and virtual reality mentor for the Lighthouse Young Creative...

Ayesha Williams-Bhatti
XR and Computer Science Researcher, Birmingham City University

Ayesha is an active PhD student researcher at Birmingham City University, specialising in HCI, personalised UX/UI design, and XR development for education and healthcare. She also has experience as postgraduate and undergraduate Computer Science Lecturer, her teaching experience ...

Lilian Hess
Artist, filmmaker, and producer

Lilian Hess is an artist, filmmaker, and producer working between Berlin and London. She graduated from Goldsmiths College with a BA in Modern Literature and an MFA in Screen Documentary. An alumna from renown programs like the Biennale College, Berlinale Talents, and the Europea...

Nathan Gaydhani
Product Manager, HTC VIVE

Nathan is a product manager and business development consultant specialising in XR technologies. Working with world-leading companies for over 10 years to leverage immersive/spatial hardware and software solutions for immediate value and engagement. Nathan is the EMEA Product Man...

Siobhan McDonnell
Co-Founder and Creative Director, Magnetic

Siobhan is a multi-award winning and Emmy nominated producer, director and co-founder of Magnetic, a creative lab using immersive technologies for interactive storytelling. With expertise across XR film, games and Location-Based Experiences, Siobhan’s focus is on world class...

Ruth Mariner
Narrative Lead, Damp Gnat Studios

Ruth Mariner is a creative director and narrative designer specialising in story-driven experiences across immersive technology (XR, VR, AR) video games and immersive theatre. She is currently the Narrative Lead at Damp Gnat Studios, working on an unannounced VR title, as well as...

Qi Pan
Director of Computer Vision Engineering, Snap

Qi has been at Snap for 8 years and was responsible for developing a variety of AR technologies that are used by hundreds of millions of people every day on Snapchat. He and the team are building AR capabilities for end-users and developers that will enable Spectacles to usher in...

Liz Rosenthal
Curator, executive producer, Venice Bienniale

Curator, executive producer and pioneer of immersive and interactive creative media. Liz is Curator of Venice Biennale’s International Film Festival's Official Selection and Competition programme Venice Immersive, Executive Producer of immersive content accelerator programme...

Martin McDonnell
CEO & Co-Founder, Soluis

Martin is a pioneer in serious gaming and the production of 3D immersive content. He founded Soluis Group in 2000, which has grown to be one of the largest immersive engagement studios for real estate.

David Edge
Director and Experiential Environments Practice Lead, Arup

I am the creative lead for Arup’s visualisation studio. My expertise – and the studio’s work – sits at the intersection of advanced visualisation, human/computer interactions, extended reality and gaming design. The high-fidelity, virtual environments we create give clien...

Yinka Danmole
Creative Director, Abandon Normal Devices

Yinka Danmole is a cultural producer with expertise in delivering public realm projects and cultural programming. Yinka's work aims to unlock the potential of people and places by creating fertile ground for artists, communities, researchers, and creative practitioners to realise...

Violeta Tsenova
StoryLab Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University

Dr Violeta Tsenova is a participatory design researcher with expertise in cultural heritage, public history, interaction design and film. Her research focuses on community-led interpretations, immersive experiences, and storytelling for transforming cultural venues.

Taran Singh
Chief Technical Officer, Birmingham Open Media

Taran Singh is the Chief Technical Officer at Birmingham Open Media (BOM) and a highly accomplished business leader with over 20 years of experience. He has achieved remarkable success in his entrepreneurial journey, building a thriving business under Taran3D and making significa...

Tara Collingwoode-Williams
XR Lecturer/Researcher, Goldsmiths University

Tara is an XR Lecturer/Researcher at Goldsmiths University, teaching Unity-based XR experience development. She is also a Speaker, the founder of BlackXRNetwork(BXRN), and a PhD student in the Intelligent Games/Game intelligence program with a focus on Avatar Embodiment and Medic...

Sylvia Pan
Professor of Virtual Reality, Goldsmiths, University of London

Prof Sylvia Pan is a Professor of Virtual Reality at Goldsmiths, University of London. She co-leads the SeeVR research lab including 10 academics and researchers. She holds a PhD in Virtual Reality, and an MSc in Computer Graphics, both from UCL, and a BEng in Computer Science fr...

Sarah Atkinson
Professor of Screen Media, King's College London

Sarah Atkinson is Professor of Screen Media at King's College London, Editor of Routledge Resources Online: Screen Studies, and co-editor of Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. Sarah has published widely on the film, cinema and screen i...

Oluwatosin Ogunyebi 
Head of Community, SwiftXR

Oluwatosin is a game developer with a knack for the extended reality spectrum(Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality). He believes games would have a great impact across Africa in years to come and he is currently working on various projects to help this dream beco...

Muki Kulhan
Chief Innovation Officer

A familiar and friendly face as part of the Innovate UK family, Muki is in demand on the global XR scene as an Award Judge, professional MC/Moderator and Keynote Speaker via her career as a multi-award-winning CIO, Executive XR Producer and Creative Technologist with over two dec...

Maite Frutos
Senior Lecturer, DMT Lab

Dr Maite Frutos-Pascual is a senior lecturer and active researcher at DMT Lab. She specialises in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), immersive technologies (Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality AR/VR), usability, user analysis, interactive systems and sensor data analysis and int...

James Taylor
Creative Technologist/XR Designer/Educator

As a Creative Technologist, James looks at the technology but also the creative processes involved, the artistry in its use, and the impact to the end user. Specializing in the application of emergent technologies across different sectors, including VR, AR, spatial computing, ...

David Massey
Senior Producer, Wales Millennium Centre

David is a Senior Producer and Curator with two decades experience leading digital experiences – from public programming in the arts to live broadcast specialising in XR storytelling. David is currently leading the Immersive Experiences team at Wales Millennium Centre where he ...

Christopher Nightingale
StoryLab Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University

Chris is StoryLab’s in-house real-time 3D developer, focusing on the practical development of experimental VR and XR projects such as Immersive Antarctica. Chris generalises across the development spectrum, including 3D asset creation, level design, UX, and program scripting. ...

Chris Freeman
AR/VR lead, Soluis

Chris has been at the forefront of immersive technology development, most recently as the AR/VR lead at the UK Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, in collaboration with Boeing, Rolls Royce & others. At Soluis Chris leads teams covering UI/UX, Engineering & Project Management...

Anton Christodoulou
Group Chief Technology Officer, Imagination

Anton is a passionate results driven business leader, CTO, and speaker, with a proven track record of leveraging disruptive innovation and cutting edge technology to drive business transformation and growth. Over 20 years experience in defining, developing, articulating and execu...

Amy Chao
Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network

I spearhead new initiatives, operations, strategy and community at Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network, the UK’s innovation network supporting growth of the XR industry (VR, AR, MR and spatial computing) consulting as part of the Digital team at Innovate UK KTN and Innovate UK, ...

Asha Easton
Innovate UK Immersive Technology Lead

I lead on the Innovate UK Immersive Technology network, helping guide organisations in the XR sector looking for funding for developing innovative products related to XR. I share insight into the market and use my network to help organisations create powerful connections. I s...

Damian Murphy – Chair of Academic Working Group
Professor in Sound and Music Computing

Damian Murphy is Professor in Sound and Music Computing at AudioLab in the Department of Electronic Engineering, University of York, where his research focuses on the development and creative application of immersive audio and virtual acoustic modelling. He is an active sound art...

Fabrizio Galeazzi
Deputy Director, StoryLab Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University

Fabrizio is Associate Professor in Heritage and Creative Technologies and Deputy Director of the StoryLab Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University. His research explores the combination of 3D interactive visualisation, immersive technologies (VR, AR, MR) and multimodal sto...

Mona Bozdog
Designer and Lecturer in Immersive Experience Design

Mona is a designer and Lecturer in Immersive Experience Design at Abertay University where she acts as Programme Co-Lead on the TIGA-accredited BA (Hons) Game Design and Production. She completed her PhD: "Playing with Performance/Performing Play. Creating hybrid experiences at t...

Fridolin Wild
Professor at the Institute of Educational Technology

Fridolin Wild is professor at the Institute of Educational Technology of The Open University, also leading the Performance Augmentation Lab (PAL). Fridolin seeks to close the dissociative gap between abstract knowledge and its practical application, researching radically new form...