Stephanie Riggs

Past Work

Stephanie has transformed narrative, experience and immersive technology in ground-breaking projects across theatre, theme park, film, VR, AR, AI and experiential. From generative narratives to artificial intelligence, Stephanie passionately explores the possibilities of the future of story and technology with diverse, interdisciplinary teams.

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About

At the Edge of New Possibilities

My work moves fluidly between academic research, industry collaboration, and startup ventures - three environments where new ideas about technology and human experience tend to emerge first. Together, these domains form a continuous cycle of inquiry and experimentation, where ideas are explored, tested in practice, and developed into new possibilities.

CORPORATE

Where Ideas Meet the Real World

I enjoy working with companies and creative teams exploring how emerging technologies can be shaped around human experience rather than simply technical capability. In these collaborations, I help organizations think through the narrative, experiential, and human implications of new systems before they are fully formed. My work has included consulting with Google Creative Lab on an immersive project (NDA), R&D with Disney Imagineering (NDA), advising Meow Wolf on strategies for expanding its story universe beyond physical exhibitions, and providing technology-forward creative direction with Hunter’s Point Experiential Agency. I frequently collaborate with media companies exploring how to move beyond traditional formats and authentically connect with audiences through experiential storytelling and advise conferences and organizations curating panels and discussions around emerging technology and the human experience.

START-UPS

Living on the Edge

I have long been drawn to startups working at the edge of emerging technologies, particularly those exploring how new systems can be designed for the human experience. Here are a few of them... I co-founded my first company, a game development company, as a student at Carnegie Mellon University, which was later sold, and I joined an Intel Capital Company start-up developing one of the earliest 3D browser environments, long before high-speed bandwidth made such ideas practical. While in San Francisco, I founded a small nonprofit called Business Arts Marketing that brought together visual artists and art executives to bridge the gap between creation and funding. That was also when I started Sunchaser Entertainment, a company I maintain to this day to produce and expand story-driven virtual and live immersive experiences and software. CO-FOUNDER OF: SAGEA - an early experiment imagining how simple interface design, a dynamic community, and a blockchain-based economy might combine to form a new kind of society native to virtual space. 5TH WALL FORUM - a nonprofit accelerator for live performance XR professionals around the world WORLD EXPERIENCE ORGANIZATION - an international nonprofit on a mission to connect and provoke the pioneers of the Experience Economy.

ACADEMIC

Builders of Tomorrow

I often collaborate with leading research institutions exploring the future of immersive media and experiential storytelling. I co-founded the Blended Reality Lab at Yale, where we investigated how physical and digital environments merge within live performance. My research has also examined embodied navigation in immersive environments, contributing to discussions about how people orient themselves inside spatial media. Through Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, I worked with master’s students and Disney Theatrical Group on a live-action and augmented reality performance experiment, and I contributed to NYU’s Future Reality Lab during its exploration of one of the world’s first co-located virtual reality experiences. Alongside these collaborations, I regularly share these ideas with emerging creators through guest lectures at institutions including Harvard, Yale, USC, Carnegie Mellon, and NYU.