Women in VR Showcase Judging Panel

Showcase Judges

Maureen Fan
Baobab Studios CEO and Co-Founder

Maureen is CEO and co-founder of Baobab Studios, the leading VR animation studio. Maureen has held leadership roles in film, gaming, and the consumer web. She was VP of games at Zynga, where she oversaw the Farmville Franchise, contributing 40 percent of the company’s revenues. Previously, she worked on Pixar’s Toy Story 3 and at eBay in product management and UI design. Her recent collaboration, The Dam Keeper, was nominated for a 2015 Best Animated Short Oscar. Maureen was also named one of ‘The Most Creative People of the Year’ by Ad Age for 2016. She received her undergraduate degree in an interdisciplinary program in computer science, art and psychology from Stanford and earned her MBA from Harvard.

Maddie Callander
Director of Operations at Boost VC

Maddie Callander runs operations for the accelerator program at Boost VC. She loves working with the incredible founders in the Boost VC ecosystem, learning as much as she can everyday, and staying curious at all times. Adam & Brayton have been supporting her addiction to Rubio’s tacos since early 2015.

Maddie is driven to create a world where all women are empowered to start startups and build tech companies. She is on the Board of the US National Committee for UN Women (SF Chapter), where they focus on both global and local issues around women’s economic empowerment.

Jess Bonner
Senior Product Manager, Spherical Cameras. HW & SW Product Manager for Fusion

Jess is Senior Product Manager at GoPro focused on Fusion, GoPro’s 5.2K spherical camera. Her responsibilities include owning the conception, development, management, and business operations of the Fusion camera product family.

An MBA and MEM graduate from the Kellogg School of Management and McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, Jess graduated from the MMM dual degree program focused on design, innovation and operations. Prior to Kellogg, Jess was a Social Media Assistant Marketing Manager at Sephora (LVMH) in San Francisco and designer of children’s toys, games, and applications at both Disney Consumer Products and the IDEO ToyLab.

Shawnee Baughman
Product Manager at STRIVR Labs

Shawnee majored in Communication with a focus on media studies and virtual reality at Stanford University. She worked in the Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) as a research assistant and embarked on an Honors Thesis project, entitled “Virtual Superheroes: Using Superpowers in Virtual Reality to Encourage Prosocial Behavior” which was published in the scientific journal, PLOS ONE.

After graduation, she became the manager of the VHIL, helping grow the development & research team and managed study-development efforts. She spent over 2 years managing VHIL before joining STRIVR on the Operations team where she became the company’s first Product Manager. She continues to help shape the future of STRIVR’s products with an interest in improving human performance within organizations and encouraging empathy and prosocial behavior.

Showcase Panelists

Chris Chin
HTC Vive

Chris Chin is Senior Director of VR Content at HTC Vive, where he leads the Healthcare and Education content verticals at Vive Studios. In addition to having spent over 15 years developing and producing interactive content at gaming companies like EA and Tencent, Chris has led a number of startups in the gaming, healthcare, and education technology space. He is a steering committee member for HTC Vive’s recently announced $10M initiative, VR for Impact, where he chairs the Education / Healthcare sub-committees. Chris is also a mentor to startup accelerators and serves as an advisor to education startups in VR.

Lauren Burmaster
Strategic Experiential Marketing | Social Impact @ Oculus

Lauren founded the VR for Good Program at Oculus, focused on driving efforts on social good content in VR as well as developing external projects bringing together creatives, developers and nonprofits to deliver impactful experiences. She holds an MA in Development Economics from the University of Queensland and her BA from Franklin and Marshall College.

Malia Probst
Women in XR Fund

Malia Probst is Director of Brand Development at VRScout, one of the world’s leading immersive media companies. She closely covers the investment side of the industry and hosts two podcasts on the space: the Real Virtual Show and the VRScout Report. Malia is a believer in the positive potentiality of VR/AR technology, with a particular interest in therapeutic approaches and trauma healing.

Malia is also the co-founder of the Women in XR fund. She’s building a coalition of industry players including venture, corporate, media and startup partners dedicated to elevating women founders and offering support resources to advance their start-ups

Ebony Peay Ramirez
Program Manager, Diversity & Inclusion

Oculus diversity lead Ebony announced on stage at Oculus Connect 3 that the company would spend $10M toward diversity initiatives to ensure multiple perspectives and stories are told in VR. Based up north, Ebony spearheaded the Women of VR panel at Facebook’s LA headquarters in January, showing support for women, diversity and inclusion in the LA tech community.