Design Lead
Studio Bahia

Iva Georgieva holds a BA in Philosophy and MA in Virtual Culture from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria. She earned her PhD in Multidisciplinary Sciences (Philosophy of Science) in 2017 from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at The University of Tokyo, Japan. Her PhD discusses the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Virtual Reality by considering trauma from a philosophical point of view, based on the theory of the narrative constitution of the self as explanations people create for making meaning of their lives. Her dissertation on the possible treatment of trauma in Virtual Reality reveals how re-assessing memory and stories about past events as an author of one's own life story could change unhealthy cognitive structures and help patients articulate and re-create their reality perception for a new outlook and meaning in their life. In her research she looks at the immersion in Virtual Reality as a new medium for self-identification and self-realization. Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Institute for Advanced Study, Varna, Bulgaria where she works on cognitive neuroscience, ethics of technology and narrative theory topics, to mention just a few. Her publications include journals such as Computers in Human Behavior, Brain Sciences, Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Frontiers in ICT among others. She is part of the EU COST action 18230 INDCOR (Interactive Narrative Design for Complexity Representations) and serves as an Ethics Advisor in the Personalised Recovery Through a Multi-User Environment: Virtual Reality for Rehabilitation (PRIME - VR2) project, part of the Horizon 2020 call ‘Interactive Technologies’. She has been part of the Studio Bahia team since 2018 and from early 2020 she is taking the role of Design Lead.