Description/Overview: Inter-disciplinary teams and innovation are standards for conducting meaningful research. Both standards apply to using cutting edge technology to advance nursing science. We will illustrate how computer simulation, developed from the intersection of engineering, computer science, digital media, and performance art, can be applied to nursing studies. Nursing research seeks to solve clinical and health problems of practical importance to people’s health and well-being. The specific technology we employ is Mixed Reality, the blending of real objects (people and tools) interacting with computer-simulated objects (avatars and props). MR offers advantages over the research methods nurse scientists traditionally use to collect data and deliver interventions. MR is multi-sensory, immersive, and delivered in real time. Participants are easily engaged. A recent and yet to be widely used revolutionary advancement in MR technology is the use of live inter-actors to digitally puppeteer computer simulated avatars. Inter-actors are trained in human psychology and improvisation to develop live, human-to-human interactive story lines that are responsive to study participants’ emerging behaviors. They “jump into the skin” of avatars and provide script and body language that is responsive to the conversation underway. In short, they provide the deep, human, interpersonal behaviors that artificial intelligence is not yet capable of producing .They also facilitate study participants’ natural capacity to respond in a virtual context. This symposium will present three examples--each at different stages of development and implentation--of inter-disciplinary partnerships to apply MR to research problems of interest to nurses: A computer game to simulate nurses’ pain management and serve as an educational intervention to increase safe and effective pain management; MR with live inter-actors as a data collection technique to obtain observational data about parental coping support for discrimination against minority youth; and MR with live inter-actors as an intervention to decrease sexual risk in Latina girls.

Learner Objective #1: Gain increased familiarity and appreciation for the ways computer simulation can be used in health research.

Learner Objective #2: Understand the benefits of multi-disciplinary partnerships with experts in computer simulation.