Join us for a unique live tour of Virtual Harvard

Harvard Club of France invites you to take part in a unique visit of Virtual Harvard. Join us as we connect live with Rus Gant*, the Director of the Visualization Research Laboratory at Harvard and head of this project, and Nicole Mills**, Director of Language Programs (interim), who applies these techniques to language teaching.

In the Future of Visualization, Rus Gant, will take us on a tour of some of the 90 buildings that have been scanned across the 14 Schools. The 3D visualizations, provide the user with a “rich and deep sense of being there,” says Rus.

In Transforming Language Learning through Cultural Immersion, Nicole Mills, will show us how Virtual Reality transports language students to Paris, for immersive, cultural experiences.

Organizers: Denise Silber, Jeffery Durand, Sonia Pujol

Join us and experience Virtual Harvard:

WHEN: Tuesday April 13 2021, 1pm CET / 7pm CEDT (Central Europe Daylight Savings Time)
WHERE: Zoom – Join us via the Zoom link which will be sent to registered participants 6 hours before the event.
COST: Free – But sign-up is required. Registration is open until April 12, 2021.

*Rus Gant is a well-regarded international 3D artist, computer engineer and educator. Currently on the Research staff at Harvard University, he is currently pursuing work in the future of real-time 3D computer graphics and virtual reality. For more than 40 years he has applied his visualization skills to work in computer science, archaeology and museology for some of the world’s leading museums and universities. As a Fellow at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies and as a Fellow at the Center for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University he has created and developed new techniques in 3D graphics, multi-media computing, virtual reality and digital archaeology and he is consistently at the forefront of the science of computer visualization. At institutions like MIT, Carnegie Mellon, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The British Museum and now Tokyo’s Showa Women’s University, he has both taught new technology, art, and culture, and used his technological expertise to advance the craft of teaching.

**Nicole Mills is the Director of Language Programs (interim) at Harvard University. She teaches courses in French, language pedagogy, and second language research and practice and serves as the advisor for Harvard’s Bok Certificate in Teaching Language and Culture. Her research interests are associated with virtual and simulated environments in language learning, psychology of language learning and teaching, and language program evaluation. She recently published Perspectives on Teaching Language and Content (co-authored with Stacey Katz Bourns and Cheryl Krueger) in 2020 with Yale University Press. She is a collaborator in the creation of La République (with Rus Gant and Wonda VR), a narrative VR project that immerses students in the lives of diverse Parisians who live in and around La Place de la République in Paris. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Studies and French and a Masters’ degree in French literature from Emory University.

Denise Silber on a pre-pandemic visit to the Visualization Lab