Ria Gualano
she/her
Graduate Student, Department of Communication
Ria studies the communication of disability through projects on inclusive VR avatars, disability and neurodiversity arts, and higher education accommodations, with a focus on invisible disabilities. As a member of the Virtual Embodiment Lab, she aims to produce actionable guidelines for enhancing the inclusivity of social, educational and work environments in virtual and non-virtual spaces. She is particularly interested in exploring participatory research methods and organized the Spring 2024 "Invisible Aspects of Disability and Neurodiversity" arts exhibition. At her undergraduate institution, she led projects on the psychological effects of social media use and collaborated with teams on research related to memory, interpersonal relationships, and well-being.
Education
- B.A. (with Honors), Psychology, Johns Hopkins University
Interests
Accessible technology, computer-mediated communication, disability and neurodiversity arts, disability representation, higher education accommodations, inclusive avatars, invisible disabilities, virtual reality
Awards & Honors
- Best Poster, XR Access Symposium (2024)
- Glass Family Fellowship, Department of Communication, Cornell University (2024)
- Dean’s Excellence Fellowship, Graduate School Dean’s Scholar, Cornell University (2022)
- Gualano, R. J., Leonard, C., Zhang, Y., Trost, Z., Azenkot, S., & Won, A. S. (2024, December). Representing Chronic Pain in Immersive Social Contexts. Poster presented at the Immersive Media in Medicine Symposium. Ithaca, NY.
- Martinez, K. T., Gualano, R. J. & Stevenson Won, A. (2024, August). How do we embody our narratives? Paper presented at the second annual Newhouse Impact Summit “Advances and Opportunities in Immersive Storytelling Technologies” at the Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications.
- Gualano, R. J. (2024, June). “Invisible Aspects of Disability and Neurodiversity”: Reflections on curating a disability arts exhibition, representation, and participatory research. Paper presented at the International Communication Association’s Inaugural Disability Communications and Media Pre-Conference 2024: Emerging or Emerged? Gold Coast, Australia.
- Gualano, R. J., Leonard, C., Zhang, Y., Trost, Z., Azenkot, S., & Won, S. A. (2024, June). Representing pain as identity, advocacy, or accommodation?: Transforming movement into behavioral representations of chronic pain conditions through social VR avatars. Poser presented at the 2024 XR Access Symposium. New York, NY.
- Gualano, R. J. (2024, March). Re-thinking time, energy, and “accommodation”: Celebrating neurodiversity and disability in higher education. Poster presented at the Neurodiversity Research Poster Session during Cornell University’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2024. Ithaca, NY.
- Gualano, R. J.*, Jiang, L.*, Zhang, K.*, Won, A. S., & Azenkot, S. (2023, June). Expanding Inclusive Avatar Design: Understanding Invisible Disability Representation and Disclosure on Social VR Platforms. Poster presented at the XR Access Symposium. New York, NY.
- Leipzig, S. B., McLeod-Daphnis, S. I., Gualano, R. J., & Won, A. S. (2022, October). Therapeutic Holodeck: A Scoping Review on Customization in XR Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy. Poster presented at the Cornell University XR Retreat. New York, NY.
- Gualano, R. J. & Bowen, J. (2022, February). Online, offline, or somewhere in between? A within-subjects examination of a domain-contingent self-concept. Poster presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s Annual Convention. San Francisco, CA.
- Gualano, R. J. & Bowen, J. (2021, October). Are our identities segmented in the digital age? The self-concept in online and offline domains. Poster presented at the Sixth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies. Toronto, Canada.
- Gualano, R. J. & Bowen, J. (2021, September). Personality and web 2.0: Social media’s longitudinal impact on the self-concept. Poster presented at the Seventh International User Conference of the German Family Panel pairfam. Bremen, Germany.
- Gualano, R. J. (2021, April). The online self-concept: Measuring the domain-contingent expression of identity and personality. Abstract presented as panelist on the Social, Digital and Mass Media Panel at the 39th Annual Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Social Research Conference. Shepherdstown, WV.
- Martinez, K. T., Gualano, R. J. & Won, A. S. (2024). How do we embody our narratives? Newhouse Impact Journal, 2(1), 17-22. https://doi.org/10.14305/jn.29960819.2024.2.1.4
- Gualano, R. J. & Campbell, S. W. (2024). Classrooms in the metaverse: educational applications and levels of learner interaction in virtual reality. Communication Education, 73(2), 212-225. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2024.2312873
- Engineer, A., Gualano, R. J., Crocker, R. L., Smith, J. L., Maizes, V., Weil, A., & Sternberg, E. M. (2021). An integrative health framework for wellbeing in the built environment. Building and Environment, 205, 108253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.108253
- Gualano, R. J., Leonard, C., Zhang, Y., Trost, Z., Azenkot, S., & Won, A. S. (2024). The Looking-Glass Avatar: Representing Chronic Pain through Social Virtual Reality Avatar Movement. In Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-5). St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. https://doi.org/10.1145/3663548.3688485
- Gualano, R. J.*, Jiang, L.*, Zhang, K., Shende, T., Won, A. S., & Azenkot, S. (2024). “I Try to Represent Myself as I Am”: Self-Presentation Preferences of People with Invisible Disabilities through Embodied Social VR Avatars. In Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-15). St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. https://doi.org/10.1145/3663548.3675620
- Gualano, R. J.*, Jiang, L.*, Zhang, K.*, Won, A. S., & Azenkot, S. (2023). "Invisible Illness Is No Longer Invisible": Making Social VR Avatars More Inclusive for Invisible Disability Representation. In Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-5). New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597638.3614480
Ria in the news
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Awards Congratulations to Department of Communication undergraduate student award winners. Together, they received more than $17,000 in awards! Edward L. Bernays Primus Inter Pares Award: Tess Lehrman Kenneth J. Bissett Communication Award...
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Conference Presentations Graduate student Emma Cox presented “Effects of Cohesion with Teammates on Division-I Student-Athletes’ Mental Health: An Application of the Human Need to Belong and Transactional Stress Frameworks” at the National...