Stephanie Riggs

STEPHANIE RIGGS stands as a distinguished figure in the tech-narrative field, expertly merging immersive technologies like VR, AR, AI, and others with classical storytelling for almost 30 years. A former Disney Imagineer and Experiential Creative Director at Refinery29 who has created groundbreaking experiences in film, theater, virtual reality, augmented reality, game design, and artificial intelligence, Stephanie has made a lasting impact across her domains, leading the ARVR Association to recognize her as “the renaissance woman of the immersive era” and colleagues to call her “a 21st century Marshall McLuhan.” She has collaborated with media giants like Instagram, Netflix, and Amazon and led research at Yale’s Blended Reality Lab, NYU’s Future Reality Lab and Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center. Her early VR works premiered at SIGGRAPH '98 and she went on to develop a VR-content conversion engine, produce the first feature film on the Oculus DK2, record President Obama in 360VR, publish research papers, and premiere immersive experiences around the world. She is an award-winning film director ("The Standbys") and acclaimed author of “The End of Storytelling,” which has been incorporated into curriculums at Harvard, Yale, NYU, USC, CMU and more. Stephanie founded Ink & Paint (an AWE Finalist Startup to Watch in 2023) and is co-founder of Odeon Theatrical, World Experience Organization, and NiaXP. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama and School of Computer Science simultaneously.