Donna Davis, APR
Donna Davis, APR, is an expert in virtual reality (VR), digital embodiment, tech equity and inclusion and digital social capital. At the University of Oregon in Portland, she is an associate professor and director of the Oregon Reality Lab and the of master’s program in immersive media communication. She also served as director of the university’s master’s program in strategic communication for ten years. Her ethnographic research focuses on the potential uses of social virtual worlds, gamification, and other emerging immersive media, with a special interest in marginalized and vulnerable communities.
Donna’s research on embodied experience and identity among people with disabilities in virtual reality was funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation. She has also extensively studied people with Parkinson’s disease who find and build support in the virtual world. Her interests continue to explore the impacts of these experiences on both the promise and peril of techno solutionism, recognizing both the isolating and connecting powers of these emerging immersive environments.