Source: University of Huddersfield
Professor Minhua Ma, a leader in the Serious
Games for Healthcare field, who joined the University of
Huddersfield’s School of Art, Design and Architecture as Director of
Internationalization in September 2014, will chair the Sixth International Conference on Serious Games Development and Applications (SGDA) that takes place on
June 3-4 in UK.
Her arrival at Huddersfield meant that she could offer the University as the venue for the conference, which has been held in a number of European Countries. For the first time the event will be held jointly with the annual Game Days Conference, bringing a wider range of researchers to the University of Huddersfield.
Her arrival at Huddersfield meant that she could offer the University as the venue for the conference, which has been held in a number of European Countries. For the first time the event will be held jointly with the annual Game Days Conference, bringing a wider range of researchers to the University of Huddersfield.
University of Huddersfield’s School of Art, Design and
Architecture
A computer scientist by training, Professor Ma
was introduced to Serious Games during her doctoral study at the University of
Ulster that led to her developing virtual reality games to help with the
rehabilitation of stroke victims.
Professor Paul McKevitt and PhD student Minhua Eunice Ma, from the
Faculty of Engineering at the Magee campus, University of Ulster, developed a software package that could
automatically transform English into 3D computer animation. The project was
part of a research collaboration between computing and the arts, investigating
how storytelling could benefit from the help of artificial intelligence.
She has published a large number of articles
and books, the latest being the edited volume Virtual, Augmented Reality and Serious Games for Healthcare 1, published 31-May-2014.
It has contributions from almost 100 global experts and is aimed at
healthcare professionals, scientists, researchers and students.
The book has six sections, covering topics
that include Serious Games in medical education and healthcare management,
nursing training, healthy behavior and how virtual reality can play a role in
neuropsychology. There are sections that cover applications in motor
rehabilitation and how therapeutic games can be used to treat a wide range of
diseases.
“An
innovative aspect of the book, says Professor Ma, is its examination of the
healthcare role of the technology of Augmented Reality, which takes actual
real-world footage and mixes it with computer-generated imagery”. For
example, an interactive augmented reality was developed for Parkinson disease
patients to practice tasks in an immersive environment where they could
interact with both real-life items and virtual objects using their bare hands.
There are also location-based games – combing the real-world location with
computer gaming elements – that encourage people to be more physically
active.
Mini-BIO
Professor Ma obtained her PhD in Computer
Science from University of Ulster and worked there as a Post-Doc Researcher on
virtual reality games for stroke rehabilitation. She joined University of Derby
as a Senior Lecturer in Computer Games Modelling and Animation in 2007 and was
promoted to Reader in 2009. She was the Head of Academic Programs at the
Glasgow School of Art since 2010 and became a Professor of Computer Games
Technology in 2013.
Professor Ma has published widely in the
fields of Serious Games for education and healthcare, in 100 peer-reviewed
publications, including 7 books on Serious Games with Springer. She has received grants from a
variety of sources for her research on Virtual Reality and Serious Games for
stroke rehabilitation, cystic fibrosis and autism, medical visualization and
natural language processing.