Immersive storytelling & Journalism, Emerging Media & Metaverse strategy
Nonny de la Peña
CEO Emblematic Group, Founding Director ASU Narrative & Emerging Media Program, Creator & Speaker
Nonny de la Peña is the founding director of ASU’s program on Emerging Media and Narrative where she leads a best-in-class research and graduate program on new narratives using emerging media technologies in the areas of arts, culture and nonfiction. She brings more than 20 years working as an award-winning writer, director and producer in virtual, augmented and extended reality, film, print and television to this new center. She was honored with the Peabody New Field Builder Award in 2022 for her leadership in developing the new domain.
She is also the founder and CEO of Emblematic Group, a next-generation media company for immersive news, entertainment and branded experiences that create intense, empathic engagement on the part of viewers via immersive virtual, mixed and augmented reality.
Recently inducted into the SXSW Hall of Fame, De la Peña was on the cover of the Wall Street Journal magazine as a WSJ Technology Innovator of the Year, and has been called “The Godmother of Virtual Reality” by Engadget, The Guardian and others. Fast Company named her “One of the People Who Made the World More Creative” for her pioneering work in immersive journalism. She is one of CNET en Español’s 20 most influential Latinos in tech, and a Wired Magazine #MakeTechHuman Agent of Change. A former correspondent for Newsweek, she has more than 20 years of award-winning experience in print, film and TV. Her virtual-reality work has been featured by the BBC, Mashable, Vice and Wired.
Her paper in the MIT journal Presence, “Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First-Person Experience of the News,” is the second most downloaded article in the journal’s history, and her TED talk on The Future of News using Virtual Reality has earned more than 1,300,000 views. Her piece Hunger in Los Angeles became the first VR piece shown at Sundance; closely followed by Use of Force, the first VR piece shown at The Tribeca Film Festival.
Nonny is a New America Fellow, a Yale Poynter Media Fellow and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southern California’s School of Communication and Journalism. She earned a BA in sociology and visual and environmental studies from Harvard University, an MA in online communities from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and a PhD in media arts and practice from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
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Nonny de la Peña is the founding director of ASU’s program on Emerging Media and Narrative where she leads a best-in-class research and graduate program on new narratives using emerging media technologies in the areas of arts, culture and nonfiction. She brings more than 20 years working as an award-winning writer, director and producer in virtual, augmented and extended reality, film, print and television to this new center. She was honored with the Peabody New Field Builder Award in 2022 for her leadership in developing the new domain.
She is also the founder and CEO of Emblematic Group, a next-generation media company for immersive news, entertainment and branded experiences that create intense, empathic engagement on the part of viewers via immersive virtual, mixed and augmented reality.
Recently inducted into the SXSW Hall of Fame, De la Peña was on the cover of the Wall Street Journal magazine as a WSJ Technology Innovator of the Year, and has been called “The Godmother of Virtual Reality” by Engadget, The Guardian and others. Fast Company named her “One of the People Who Made the World More Creative” for her pioneering work in immersive journalism. She is one of CNET en Español’s 20 most influential Latinos in tech, and a Wired Magazine #MakeTechHuman Agent of Change. A former correspondent for Newsweek, she has more than 20 years of award-winning experience in print, film and TV. Her virtual-reality work has been featured by the BBC, Mashable, Vice and Wired.
Her paper in the MIT journal Presence, “Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First-Person Experience of the News,” is the second most downloaded article in the journal’s history, and her TED talk on The Future of News using Virtual Reality has earned more than 1,300,000 views. Her piece Hunger in Los Angeles became the first VR piece shown at Sundance; closely followed by Use of Force, the first VR piece shown at The Tribeca Film Festival.
Nonny is a New America Fellow, a Yale Poynter Media Fellow and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southern California’s School of Communication and Journalism. She earned a BA in sociology and visual and environmental studies from Harvard University, an MA in online communities from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and a PhD in media arts and practice from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
