SIMH President

Clinical Professor
Stanford University

Kim Bullock, MD, FACP, is Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford Medical School, and Director of Stanford’s Virtual Reality and Immersive Technology program since 2014. She earned an AB with Honors and distinction in Psychology and Physiology from University of California, Revelle College and completed her MD from George Washington University, and completed an internship in Internal Medicine at Washinton Hospital before completing her psychiatry residency at Stanford University. Following residency, she obtained board certification in Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurology, as well as Lifestyle Medicine, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She has published multiple peer-reviewed articles and is a Cambridge and Oxford Press author. She is internationally known for her work in functional neurological disorders and clinical trials using extended reality (XR). Her current research focuses on enhancing evidence-based therapies with immersive technologies to improve outcomes, patient engagement, and skills acquisition across psychiatric populations.

SIMH President-Elect

Director, Medical Virtual Reality - Institute for Creative Technologies
Research Professor - Dept. of Psychiatry and School of Gerontology
University of Southern California

Skip Rizzo is a Clinical Psychologist, and directs of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) Medical VR Lab. He is a research professor in both the USC Dept. of Psychiatry and the School of Gerontology. Over the last 30 years, he has conducted research on the design, development and evaluation of VR systems across the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in healthy and clinical populations. This work has focused on PTSD, TBI, Autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, psychedelic therapy, suicide prevention, and other clinical conditions. Perhaps best known for his empirically validated use of VR in the treatment of combat and sexual trauma related PTSD, he has a long history of working in an interdisciplinary fashion with computer scientists, graphic artists, software engineers, and medical/industry leaders & in 2023, received the IEEE VR Lifetime Achievement Award. For more info on his work: https://www.youtube.com/user/AlbertSkipRizzo/videos

SIMH Secretary

Dr. Howard Gurr is a clinical psychologist based in New York, specializing in treating patients with anxiety and phobias. He has written articles, been quoted in newspapers, and made appearances on radio and television shows to discuss various psychological topics. Since 2006, Dr. Gurr has created and hosted a podcast, The Shrink Is In (https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/drgurr), focusing on psychology and virtual reality therapy. In 2016, he incorporated VR into his practice to treat patients with phobias. Dr. Gurr also served as the American ambassador for Amelia VR/XR Health. He also created a global directory of virtual reality therapists that is accessible to both professionals and the general public (https://vrtherapistsinternational.com/). Additionally, he is a co-founder of the Society of Immersive Mental Health. Dr. Gurr currently provides consulting services to VR companies around the world to develop and enhance immersive technology aimed at treating mental health issues.

SIMH Treasurer

Joe Elliott, PhD, is a psychotherapist in Galveston, Texas, with thirty years’ experience as a clinician and researcher. He previously coordinated research at the anxiety disorders clinics of the University of Houston and University of Texas Mental Sciences Institute, and at the Eyewitness Testimony research lab at Sam Houston State Univ. He retired from the University of Texas Medical Branch where he was the Mental Health Manager at the Texas NeuroHIV Research Center, supervising and doing neuropsychological testing at their NIH-sponsored brain/tissue repository.

Dr. Elliott is a Cold War veteran of the US Army Special Forces, and has a Master’s in Clinical Psychology and a PhD in Cognition and Instruction Psychology. He is the Founding Treasurer of SIMH, a Founding Member of the American Medical Extended Reality Association (AMXRA) and is the “Ambassador to North America” for IDEGO.it, an Italian company providing VR treatment suites for clinical practice and research.

SIMH Board Member

Professor and Clinical Researcher
Université du Québec en Outaouais

Stéphane Bouchard held the Canada Research Chair in Clinical Cyberpsychology for 21 years and teaches cyberpsychology and psychotherapy at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. As a scientist-practitioner, his research is dedicated to both meaningful clinical applications of cyberpsychology and rigorous science in the treatment of anxiety and other mental disorders. Since 1999, his research projects have included developing virtual environments for the treatment of complex anxiety disorders and pathological gambling, conducting randomised control trials on the efficacy of in virtuo exposure for mental disorders (anxiety, addictions, etc.), and conducting experimental studies to understand why virtual reality is an effective treatment tool. He is now incorporating discriminative and generative artificial intelligence tools into his work, as well as exploring issues of cyber security and digital trust. He is a dynamic workshop leader and a prolific scholar whose scientific articles have been cited more than 15,000 times.

SIMH Board Member

Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry
Weill Cornell Medicine

Dr. JoAnn Difede is an internationally recognized expert in PTSD and a pioneer in the use of virtual reality therapy for trauma treatment. As Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine, Attending Psychologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and Director of the Program for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies, she has led groundbreaking research funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense. Her innovative work has transformed the treatment of PTSD in survivors of terrorism, military combat, and other traumatic events. A trusted advisor to government agencies, healthcare organizations, and nonprofits, Dr. Difede has received numerous national awards for advancing trauma care. Her research and clinical expertise have been featured in leading publications, including The Lancet, The New York Times, Scientific American, and Newsweek, establishing her as one of the world's foremost authorities on evidence-based PTSD treatment.

SIMH Board Member

Chair of Psychology
University of Oxford

Daniel Freeman holds the Chair of Psychology in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford and is a Professorial Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford. He is a consultant clinical psychologist in Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator, and a Fellow of the British Academy. The aim of his work is to improve the lives of people with mental health conditions by developing, testing, and implementing new cognitive-behavioural interventions. Over the past 25 years Daniel and colleagues have been developing virtual reality programmes to assess, understand, and treat mental health conditions.

SIMH Board Member

Research & Innovations Director
Stanford Medical Mixed Reality Center

Dr. Walter Greenleaf, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist and medical technology developer working at Stanford University. With over forty years of experience in medical research and product development, he is a leading authority in digital medicine and the clinical application of virtual reality technology.

Walter is the Research & Innovations Director for the Stanford Medical Mixed Reality Center. He also advises the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, the Stanford Wearable Electronics (eWear) Program, and the Stanford Virtual Reality & Immersive Technology (VR-IT) Clinic. He is the Board Chair of the International Virtual Reality Health Association (IVRHA).

Previously, Walter was the Director of the Mind Division at the Stanford Center on Longevity, where he focused on age-related changes in cognition.

Walter’s current focus is on designing, developing, and validating clinical systems that leverage biosensing, AI, and XR technology to address challenging problems in behavioral and physical medicine.

SIMH Board Member

Founding Director of Stress, Trauma, and Anxiety Research Clinic (STARC)
Professor at Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences
Wayne State University, School of Medicine

Arash Javanbakht MD, is the founding director of the Stress, Trauma, and Anxiety Research Clinic (STARC). He is inventor of ExpandXR, a patented AI enhanced augmented reality technology for transdiagnostic treatment of PTSD and anxiety disorders. His XR work has been recognized with Department of Defense funding, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Innovation Award, the UnitedXR Healthcare Solution of the Year Award, and a 2026 Webby nomination. He also specializes in neurobiological and environmental correlates of risk and resilience in PTSD and anxiety.

Dr Javanbakht is recipient of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America Member of Distinction and the Society of Biological Psychiatry Humanitarian Award.

His work has been featured by the NPR, Scientific American, Washington Post, CNN, PBS, Science, Lancet, among many other outlets. He is author of the book “Afraid: Understanding the Purpose of Fear, and Harnessing the Power of Anxiety”.

SIMH Board Member

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Prof. Giuseppe Riva is a Full Professor of General Psychology at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) in Milan and a leading scholar in cyberpsychology, virtual reality, and human–technology interaction. He directs the Humane Technology Lab at UCSC and the Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab at Istituto Auxologico Italiano. His pioneering research explores how immersive and digital technologies can support mental health, well-being, presence, embodiment, and positive human experiences. Author of hundreds of scientific publications and several books, Prof. Riva is internationally recognized for shaping the fields of cyberpsychology, cybertherapy, and Positive Technology.

SIMH Board Member

Distinguished Investigator
Universitat de Barcelona

Mel Slater, DSc, is a Distinguished Investigator at the University of Barcelona in the Institute of Neurosciences, and co-Director of the Event Lab (Experimental Virtual Environments for Neuroscience and Technology). He was previously Professor of Virtual Environments at University College London in the Department of Computer Science. He has been involved in research in virtual reality since the early 1990s and his work has concentrated on both technical developments in VR and contributions to the understanding of presence and the cognitive neuroscience of body ownership and agency. He has been first supervisor of 41 PhDs in graphics and virtual reality. He was a Research Award Winner of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2021 and was elected to the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Academy in 2022. He is Field Editor of Frontiers in Virtual Reality, and Chief Editor of the Human Behaviour in Virtual Reality section.

SIMH Board Member

Jessica Stone, Ph.D., PCC, FMXR, is a licensed psychologist, executive coach, author, speaker, and internationally recognized contributor to the responsible integration of immersive technology in mental health. She is the founder of the Mental Health Virtual Reality International Coalition, SIMH Board member, and the creator of Digital Play Therapy™, with extensive work at the intersection of psychology, neurodiversity, clinical innovation, and technology-enabled care. Dr. Stone is the author and editor of multiple books, including Digital Play Therapy, Play Therapy and Telemental Health, Technology in Mental Health, and Mental Health Virtual Reality: The Power of Immersive Worlds. She has presented nationally and internationally on virtual reality, digital therapeutics, ethics, play therapy, and clinical applications of emerging technologies. Her work emphasizes psychologically grounded, ethically informed, and developmentally responsive use of immersive tools across clinical, educational, and professional settings.

SIMH Board Member

Professor in Psychiatry
Director, Veterans Program and the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program
Emory University School of Medicine

Barbara Olasov Rothbaum, PhD is Director of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program. She is a professor and Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research at Emory School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program and holds the Paul A. Janssen Chair in Neuropsychopharmcology. She specializes in research on the treatment of anxiety disorders, particularly PTSD. Dr. Rothbaum has been studying PTSD treatments since 1986, and has developed, tested, and disseminated some of the most innovative and effective treatments available for PTSD. She is an inventor of virtual reality exposure therapy. Dr. Rothbaum has been conducting translational research on MDMA for almost a decade. She has authored over 400 scientific papers and chapters, has published 11 books on the treatment of PTSD and edited 4 others on anxiety, and received the Diplomate in Behavioral Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. She is a past president of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). She was awarded the Robert S. Laufer Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement from ISTSS and received the 2021 ISTSS the Lifetime Achievement Award. Her recent books on PTSD for the general public: PTSD: What Everyone Needs to Know and Making Meaning of Difficult Experiences.

SIMH Board Member

Professor Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold, Ph.D., MBA, BCB, BCN, FRSM, is Co-Founder of the Virtual Reality Medical Center and Founder of the Interactive Media Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. A Licensed Clinical Psychologist in the United States and Europe, she is Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Milan and serves on the Medical Staff at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla.

An internationally recognized expert in Virtual Reality, Biofeedback, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dr. Wiederhold has conducted more than 10,000 VR-assisted therapy sessions and authored over 400 scientific publications and 19 books. She has organized the International CyberPsychology, CyberTherapy & Social Networking Conference for 29 years and is Editor-in-Chief of the MEDLINE-indexed journal CyberPsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. Her consulting includes strategic roles with UnitedHealthcare, the European Commission, and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center.