Dr. Xin Tong 佟馨
Post-doc Scholar
School of Medicine
Stanford University
Dr. Xin Tong is currently affiliated with the Pervasive Wellbeing Technology Lab at Stanford University and is a Research Associate there. She’s joining Duke Kunshan University, Duke’s campus in China, as an Assistant Professor in Computation and Design, starting Fall 2021. Dr. Tong has been an instructor teaching undergrad courses, including games, VR, human-computer interaction (HCI) related courses. Previously, Dr. Tong was a member of Pain Studies Lab , and she received her Ph.D. at School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University (SFU), advised by Dr. Diane Gromala, Dr. Chris Shaw, and Dr. Dave Fracchia. Before her PhD, she received her M.Sc. from SIAT SFU and her Bachelor’s in Electronic Engineering from BUPT. Xin also worked as Research Associate at Peking University from 2018 to 2019, Tsinghua University from 2012 to 2013.
Dr. Tong has published in many top academic conferences and journals on HCI, VR, games, and embodied interface technologies. She is the recipient of Best Game Awards and Nominations at ACM CHI and Microsoft Unite Conference. She is also a recipient of many national and university fellowships and awards, such as SFU Provost Prize of Distinction Award, C.D. Nelson Memorial Scholarship, MITACS Research Training Award, SFU Big Data Graduate Scholarship, McQuarrie Chronic Pain Scholarship, and NSERC Post-doc Fellowship.
Click here to see her Google Scholar profile.
NEWS
2021-05-18 Xin is invited to SIAT graduate students’ IAT883 Proposal Writing course as a guest speaker to share her experience taking this course previously.
2021-05-12 Xin is invited to chair a session at CHI 2021 and host this paper session remotely.
2021-05-01 Xin works as an AC member at CSCW and was responsible for five papers for this cycle.
2021-04-16 Xin officially joined Pervasive Wellbeing Technology Lab at Stanford University as a post-doc scholar, and she will be working there on Home Sweet Office (HSO) and DogBot projects for six months.
2021-04-15 Xin defended her PhD dissertation titled “Bodily Resonance: Exploring the Effects of Virtual Embodiment on Pain Modulation and the Fostering of Empathy toward Pain Sufferers.” Her external examiner was Dr. Mel Slater from University of Barcelona, the most renowned scholar in VR and embodiment field; and her internal examiner was Dr. Owen Williamson, a famous pain clinician from Surrey Memorial Hospital.
2021-04-09 Xin presented her research, Project ABC: Authorization, booking and coordination of widespread serological testing and immunization, at SFU Public Square’s Community Summit: Towards Equity. This event was held annually to showcase highlighted research to the local community.
2021-03-31 As a volunteered community scientist from Telus Science World, Xin delivered the same talk to a group of students at Lac La Hache Elementary, Lac La Hache, Canada.
2021-03-09 As a volunteered community scientist from Telus Science World, Xin delivered a talk about game design and careers, as well as her research in games remotely via Microsoft Teams to a group of students at Columneetza Secondary, Williams Lake, Canada.
2021-03-09 to 03-23 Xin participated in a 4-week instructional workshop (3 hours per week) about inclusive teaching held by SFU.
2021-02-28 Xin received an offer from Duke Kunshan University (Duke University’s campus in China) and will be an Assistant Prof. in Computation and Design starting from Fall 2021.
2021-02-22 Xin is invited to review a journal paper about VR for remote education in Frontiers in Psychology.
2021-02-15 Xin is invited to review a journal paper in Frontiers in Virtual Reality.
2021-02-04 Xin is organizing a research topic about non-pharmacological approaches for pain management to be published in Frontiers in Pain Research Journal.
2021-02-02 Xin participated in MITACS’ two-day online Project Management Workshop.
2021-02-01 Xin was invited to review a journal paper submitted to Taylor & Francis’ Human-Computer Interaction Journal (impact factor 4.222) by the action editor.
2021-01-31 Xin received NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF) award, a fellowship given to researchers and scientists with PhD working in cutting-edge technology.
2021-01-21 Xin was invited to give an online research talk about Empathy & VR to a group of researchers in this field, who are graduate students from Monash University and undergraduates from Xi’an-jiaotong Liverpool University.
2021-01-04 Xin was invited to review manuscripts from IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems.
2021-01-03 Xin was invited to review journal paper submissions for JMIR Serious Games.
2020-12-12 Xin was invited to be an associate chair for ACM CHI 2021 LBW.
2020-12-02 Project ABC and SFU team’s research has been reported by the media, including SFU Communications, BC Local News, and local radio.
2020-12-01 Xin has been nominated by the School of Interactive Arts and Technology to receive SFU’s Thesis Completion Fellowship for Spring 2021, which was awarded to top 1 graduate student per school.
2020-11-29 Xin was invited to be a paper reviewer for ACM IMWUT 2020.
2020-11-17 Xin was invited to be a journal paper reviewer for JMIR Serious Games.
2020-10-15 Xin was invited to be an associate chair for ACM CSCW’s 2020-2021 cycle.
2020-09-15 Xin receives MITACS Accelerate Internship Fellowship as one of Project ABC‘s research interns.
2020-09-01 Xin and her supervisor Prof.Diane Gromala joined Project ABC: Authorization, booking and coordination of widespread serological testing and immunization, as their research collaborator to work on its design features for authorization, booking, and coordination of COVID-19 vaccine with varied populations. Project ABC is a digital technology supercluster received $4.4 M budget from the Canadian Government, Cambian, LifeLabs, IBM, Providence Health, etc, that has over 680 associated members.
2020-08-26 Xin was invited to be a reviewer for IEEE VR 2021 papers.
2020-08-01 Xin received MITACS graduate research training award for her study on developing AI & deep learning computational models for patients’ biofeedback data in VR.
2020-07-01 Xin was invited by B.C. Science Fair as one of their 2020 event judges for Computer Science and Engineering programs.
Read more (To be coming)…
SELECTED WORK
Designing a Virtual Reality Game for Promoting Empathy Toward Patients with Chronic Pain: Feasibility and Usability Study. Tong X., Gromala, D., Kieai P., and Shaw C. JMIR Serious Games 2020;8(3):e17354.
PDF | JMIR Serious Games | Project
Farmooo, a Virtual Reality Farm Simulation Game Designed for Cancer Pediatric Patients to Distract their Pain during Chemotherapy Treatment. Ng, J., Lo, H., Tong, X., Gromala, D., & Jin, W. Electronic Imaging, 2018(3), 432-1.
PDF | SemanticScholar | Project
WORK IN PROGRESS
Animal Crossing: an Emotional Improver and Collaborative Platform for Players during COVID19 Pandemic. Tong X., C., Gromala, D., Kieai P., and Fracchia D., ACM CHI 2021, paper in submission.
Project.
“Follow me, and let’s see the sea!” – A Long-term Field Study to Promote Social Communications for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders through Online Collaborative Game Tasks in Minecraft. Tong X., Diao H., Zeng, S., and Wei, K., PLoS ONE, Submitted.
Project.
Cognitive and Embodied Biofeedback in VR: Designing VR Interventions for Long-term Use by Chronic Pain Patients. Gromala, D., Shan, Z., Kiaei, P., Tong X., Shaw, C., work-in-progress.
Project.
HCI & Game Researcher 