Category: Voices of XR Future

The Metaverse Handbook

QuHarrison Terry is the featured speaker for Studio X’s 2023 reading group on the metaverse. He is a co-author of this year’s text, The Metaverse Handbook. He is a growth marketer at Mark Cuban Companies, a Dallas, Texas venture capital firm, where he advises and assists portfolio companies with their marketing strategies and objectives. Previously, he led marketing at Redox, focusing on lead acquisition, new user experience, events, and content marketing. QuHarrison has been featured on CNN, Harvard Business Review, WIRED, Forbes and is the co-host of CNBC’s Primetime Series – No Retreat: Business Bootcamp. As a speaker and moderator QuHarrison has presented at CES, TEDx, Techsylvania in Romania, Persol Holdings in Tokyo, SXSW in Austin, TX, and more. QuHarrison is a 4x recipient of Linkedin’s top voices in Technology award.

His past work includes:

• Author of The Metaverse Handbook – a can’t-miss guide to participating in the most promising new technology since the advent of the web
• Co-Host of CNBC’s Primetime Series – No Retreat: Business Bootcamp 
• Author of The NFT Handbook – a detailed guide on how to create, sell and buy non-fungible tokens without the need for a technical background
• Global Spokesman for BMW – a German automotive company that produces luxury vehicles and motorcycles
• Co-founder of Inevitable/Human – the futuristic media platform and community for future thinkers
• Co-founder of 23VIVI – the world’s first digital art marketplace powered by the blockchain
• Head of Marketing for Redox – an API based healthcare data exchange platform
• Founder of VNM USA – an advertising agency specializing in marketing to millennials

QuHarrison attended the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Where: Zoom
When: Friday, 4/7/23 from noon – 1pm EDT
Register: bit.ly/VoicesXRQuHarrison

The Voices of XR speaker series is made possible by Kathy McMorran Murray and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Traineeship (NRT) program as part of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Training in the Science, Technology, and Applications of Augmented and Virtual Reality at the University of Rochester (#1922591).

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Reference Free Learning for Speech Enhancement and Speech Assessment

Anurag Kumar is a research scientist and technical research lead at Meta Reality Labs Research. His primary research interests are in machine learning for audio and speech processing and audio-visual learning. 

Kumar’s talk will be centered on improving the perceptual quality and intelligibility of speech signals, which is critical for improving communications in real and virtual world whether someone has normal hearing or some form of hearing impairment. He will present an outline of some of his recent research on both methods to enhance degraded speech as well as methods for speech assessment, and he will go in depth on his recent works on unsupervised and self-supervised approaches for speech enhancement and how speech signals from the wild—for which target signals are not available—and might be used for enhancement. 

Kumar has been recipient of several awards and recognition including Best Paper Finalist at CVPR 2022 and NCC 2014, finalist in Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship 2017, winner of Samsung Innovation Awards 2012, and travel grants from IEEE SPS and EURASIP.

Where: Zoom
When: Monday, 3/27/23 from 10:25 to 11:40am EDT
Register: bit.ly/VoicesXRAnuragKumar

The Voices of XR speaker series is made possible by Kathy McMorran Murray and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Traineeship (NRT) program as part of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Training in the Science, Technology, and Applications of Augmented and Virtual Reality at the University of Rochester (#1922591).

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Innovation and Emerging Technologies at Space Force

Lieutenant Colonel Stephanie I. Raffo is currently the Director of Innovation at the Headquarters Space Operations Command, Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. Colonel Raffo leads the Innovation Directorate, delivering software and hardware solutions for Space Force operational missions and fostering the innovative culture across the Command. Prior to her current assignment, Colonel Raffo led a 6-member team as an Operations Officers in technical analysis and development of weapon systems and authored well over 100 technical reports at the Munitions Directorate, Eglin Air Force Base, FL. She fostered vital inter- and intra-base agency cooperation for munitions research and development. At Schriever Air Force Base, Colonel Raffo led a fourteen-satellite constellation valued at over $3.5 billion in support of 200,000 users. She transformed the SATCOM tactics process, eliminated wing operations redundancies, and led the group’s 38-member division through Air Force Space Command’s largest evaluation program. Additionally, Colonel Raffo challenged 234 cadet candidates in academics and the military profession at the USAF Academy. She was an instrumental coach on leadership and character lessons for over 1,000 cadets. Moreover, Colonel Raffo was an Air University Fellow stimulating the professional growth and development of 98 captains, defense civilians and international officers through the Air Force’s $22.8M resident company grade officer course. Finally, Colonel Raffo led the Commander’s Action Group and the Executive Staff for the Air Reserve Personnel Center Commander, ensuring force support to 1.3 million Air Force active duty, reserve, and guard personnel world-wide.

Where: Zoom
When: Wednesday, 3/22/23 from 10:25 to 11:40am EDT
Register: bit.ly/VoicesXRStephRaffo

The Voices of XR speaker series is made possible by Kathy McMorran Murray and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Traineeship (NRT) program as part of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Training in the Science, Technology, and Applications of Augmented and Virtual Reality at the University of Rochester (#1922591).

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