Jill Bennett is Scientia Professor and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at UNSW. She is Founding Director of The Big Anxiety Festival; the Big Anxiety Research Centre [BARC]; and the Felt Experience & Empathy Lab [fEEL] at UNSW. Jill’s immersive media and public engagement projects explore the role of creativity and trauma-informed design in supporting mental and emotional health with a particular focus on lived experience of trauma and distress. Her team have co-created ten major Virtual Reality projects, including: The Visit (ACM Originality and Impact Award, 2019), Perinatal Dreaming (Grand Jury Prize for Best VR, Sheffield DocFest, 2024) and Waumananyi, a collaboration with Uti Kulintjaku, Indigenous (Anangu) Elders shot in the Australian Central Desert. fEEL has also pioneered the development of digitally embodied AI companions for peer support. Her most recent book is The Big Anxiety: Taking Care of Mental Health in Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury, 2022). Other recent articles document the impact of Big Anxiety workshops using immersive media to transform trauma: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/4/249 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/1/20