Peabody field builder winner Nonny de la Peña is the program director of ASU’s center for Emerging Media and Narrative, where she leads a best-in-class research and graduate program with a focus on new narratives developed using emerging media technologies in the areas of arts, culture and nonfiction. She comes to the new Los Angeles-based center, a joint undertaking by The Sidney Poitier New American Film School, in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, with more than 20 years working as an award-winning writer, director and producer in virtual, augmented and extended reality, film, print and television. As founder and CEO of Emblematic Group, de la Peña has won multiple awards for her storytelling using cutting-edge technologies to create intense, empathic and powerful engagement on the part of viewers. Her latest breakthrough is Emblematic’s WebXR platform REACH.Love, a no-code toolset that creates scalable distribution in the medium, democratizes content authorship, and empowers new voices to share their stories.  De la Peña has appeared on the cover of the Wall Street Journal Magazine as Technology Innovator of the Year, was inducted into the SXSW Hall of fame in 2022 and was named one of CNET en Español’s 20 most influential Latinos in tech. Nicknamed the “Godmother of Virtual Reality” by Engadget and the Guardian, she is also a New America Fellow, a Yale Poynter Media Fellow and a former correspondent for Newsweek. Widely credited with pioneering the genre of immersive journalism, de la Peña was selected by Wired Magazine as a #MakeTechHuman Agent of Change, and Fast Company named her “One of the People Who Made the World More Creative.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nonny-de-la-pe%C3%B1a-phd-4363644