Sin-Hwa Kang, Ph.D.
email: sinhwa.kang (at) gmail.com
I am a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. I'm currently working for the Medical Virtual Reality (MedVR) Group and previously worked for the Computational Emotion Group before joining the MedVR Group. My research focuses on affective human-agent interaction in social and psychotherapeutic interactions. I adopt interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches to my research, specifically in social and clinical psychological contexts.
I have been participating in National Science Foundation funded projects where I work on modeling a novel approach to explore interactants' perceptions of copresence and the medium itself, including the adoption of virtual humans over emotionally engaged and computer-mediated interaction. I am currently doing research on investigating virtual humans as virtual counselors and appeared in The New York Times with my work (In Cybertherapy, Avatars Assist With Healing). I recently received the "New Investigator Award" for a presentation of outstanding research quality at the CyberTherapy & CyberPsychology 2011 conference.
I obtained a M.Sc. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia and a Ph.D. from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, majoring in Communication with concentration in Human-Computer Interaction. Before coming to the US, I worked in industry, researching and developing web applications for online communities, marketing, and industrial training in Seoul, Korea where I earned my bachelor's degree from Ewha Woman's University.
"The contemporary multiplication of spaces makes us nomads again . . . we leap from network to netwok . . . spaces metamorphose and bifurcate beneath our feet, forcing us to undergo a process of heterogenesis."
- Levy 1998: 31
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