Larry Hodges is a professor of human computer interaction at Clemson University, and he was one of the co-chairs of the very first IEEE VR academic in 1999. Hodges also co-founded a start-up named Recover, which originated from a successful research project into stroke recovery done by his student Austen Hayes. Inspired by the latest research into neurorehabilitation & skill relearning, they create a Kinect-based experience that gamifies the rehab exercises that 85% of people don’t do because they’re either too boring or painful. They’re able to inspire stroke recovery patients to do extended rehab practices while also progressively increasing the difficulty of the tasks over time as they slowly get better.

I had a chance to catch up with Larry at the IEEE VR academic conference in March 2016, where we talked about the history of the IEEE VR conference, his work with stroke rehabilitation and virtual therapy along with some of the results that they’re seeing, as well as some of his research on treating PTSD with virtual reality.