From personal tragedy to innovation: Professor advances virtual reality grief support – News
From personal tragedy to innovation: Professor advances virtual reality grief support
KENNESAW, Ga. |
Jul 14, 2026
Funded by a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Lei Zhang, a human-computer
interaction researcher in College of Computing and Software Engineering, is building a virtual reality system that lets bereaved parents meet, share memories,
and process grief together in a shared immersive digital space, inspired by his own
experiences losing a child to cancer
“When a child is being treated for cancer, parents often live at the hospital for an extended period of time, building close bonds with the medical team and other parents going through the same thing,” Zhang said. “But when the treatment fails and the child dies, parents go back home to their lives, and those bonds are cut off overnight.”
Zhang wants to help those parents hold onto those connections. Already a year into
the project, Zhang has partnered with collaborators Erica Kaye from St. Jude Children’s
Research Hospital, Wendy Lichtenthal from the University of Miami, and a group of
KSU graduate students to develop three virtual reality software prototypes. They are
designed to help grieving parents reconnect, share memories and participate in therapeutic
activities in ways traditional video conferencing cannot.
“We’re moving into the next stage,” Zhang said. “The prototypes are nearly complete. We’re preparing to evaluate how parents experience them and whether virtual reality can help create stronger feelings of connection than existing online support.”
Zhang’s idea for the project came from a personal loss. In 2020, after losing their 2-year-old daughter Lexie to acute myeloid leukemia, Zhang and his wife participated in bereavement programs offered by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Lexie’s treatment hospital. Having participated in the program for three consecutive years, they experienced both the healing power of connecting with other parents as well as the limitations of online support groups, inspiring Zhang to explore whether immersive technology could help bridge that gap.
“When you talk to someone on Zoom or Teams, behind the barrier of a computer screen you still feel like you’re in two different spaces. This phenomenon is known as the fourth wall effect,” Zhang said. “Immersive virtual reality gives you a feeling of presence, like you’re actually together in the same space with that person.”
Zhang’s three VR prototypes were built with help from a small team of KSU graduate students: Sinha Afroz, a Ph.D. student in computer science; Mason Prather, a master’s student in software engineering; and Ian Skoonberg, a master’s student in computer science. Each student took the lead on developing one of the VR experiences, working alongside Zhang to bring the prototypes from concept to testing
The first prototype is a multi-user support group experience where parents can interact and share their children’s stories in a virtual space as avatars. The second is a generative AI-assisted guided imagery mindfulness therapy that creates immersive environments based on parents’ memories and emotions
The third is inspired by the Wind Phone, a telephone booth that was set up in Japan by a man mourning his brother after the 2011 tsunami, which will allow parents to use a virtual phone to call and “talk” to their child
For Skoonberg who designed the Wind Phone aspect, the project was deeply personal. “My specific focus is related to grief practices, which has been very relevant to me,” he said. “I lost my childhood best friend to suicide about a year ago. The work I am doing is about creating grief rituals that might benefit others.”
Once the prototypes are polished, this fall he will partner with the Quality of Life program at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis to recruit bereaved parents for testing. Parents will participate in a longitudinal study lasting at least four months, with the study measuring grief intensity, feelings of connectedness, anxiety and depression
“If this proves to be effective,” Zhang said, “it could become another option for parents to connect with one another and support each other wherever they are.”
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Initiation Initiative under Award No. 2451461
– Story by Christin Senior Photo by Matt Yung
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