Dr. Ying (Gina) Tang

Considerable interest has been devoted to the pursuit of learning and training through, and with, digital games so-called Serious Games (SG), “computer-based games with a primary purpose other than entertainment”. There are many benefits of using SG in education, particularly engagement, motivation and reach. SG makes difficult abstract concepts and large data sets accessible in ways that are more visual, interactive, and concrete, providing an opportunity to gain the attention of students who are not otherwise engaged with the content. The game format provides students with a learning structure and an incentive to develop their skills at their own pace in a non-judgmental but competitive and often fun environment. Rigorous assessment and personalized scaffolding that are possible in SG allow games to reach students at different learning levels. This talk presents the intellectual merit of the recent development of virtual reality based serious games in various learning and training settings. The talk showcases various design strategies in order to maximize the aforementioned benefits and student achievement. The integration of serious games, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology is also explored to present new research challenges and future directions

Biography:

Dr. Ying Tang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Northeastern University, P. R. China, in 1996 and 1998, respectively, and Ph. D degree from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2001. She is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, USA, and a visiting professor of School of Information Science and Technology at Maritime University, Dalian, China. Her research contributions lie in two broad categories. The first is in the area of discrete event systems, particularly modeling, control and optimization for sustainability. She is the funding chair of IEEE Robotic and Automation Society (RAS) Technical Committee on Sustainable Production Automation and has led the TC to win the RAS CERMA project. The second is in the area of virtual reality and augmented reality. She holds a US patent (U.S. 9,626,568) for markerless AR in mobile applications. She has successfully integrated serious games with sensor informatics and machine learning to offer series of educational and training systems to support personalized learning. Such development has been featured many times in newspapers and magazines, including a recent story in 2018 IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine Vol 12, Issue 2. Tang’s work has been continuously supported by NSF, local foundations, industry and Natural Science Foundation of China. Her work has resulted in over 150 scientific publications, including 43 journal articles, 7 book editorials and chapters, and many conference articles. Dr. Tang is currently serving as the Secretary of the IEEE SMCS, and a members-at-large of the SMCS Board of Governors (2019–2021). She served as Associate Editor of IEEE Transaction on Automation Science and Engineering from 2009 to 2014 and is currently serving as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, International Journal of Intelligent Control and Systems, and Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Remanufacturing. She has chaired several technical sessions and served on program committees for many conferences.