Anne-Sophie Milcent defended her thesis on June 15, 2020, via Teams video conferencing and live on YouTube. Focus on her career and research work, which resonated strongly with the health news of spring 2020. This was a period in which digital technology gave a boost to the training of healthcare professionals.
After earning a professional bachelor’s degree in 3D computer graphics fromUCO in Laval and a Master of Science Digital Creation and Engineering from the University of Valenciennes, Anne-Sophie quickly reaffirmed her desire to explore the mechanisms of learning and training through the use of simulators. Her end-of-study internships were with specialists in digital solutions and serious games: OHRIZON in Quebec and OPERANTIS in Toulouse paved the way for her.
A thesis dedicated to improving training for healthcare professionals 
Until 2016, my specialty was 3D modeling, until one day, while designing virtual agents, I began to wonder about their impact on the user experience and the role of emotions in this context of human-machine interaction. Human-Machine
Are virtual characters capable of generating emotional and empathetic responses in users? What factors can induce empathy, and how?
All these questions, which have no immediate answer, have been put to use in research, as part of a CIFRE thesis, dividing her time between LAMPA (Presence & Innovation team) and SimforHealth, the digital simulation division of the Interaction Healthcare It couldn't have found a better observation ground than this Bordeaux-based startup. Specializing in the design of simulators for training healthcare professionals, SimforHealth is working to improve the teaching of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures to healthcare professionals. Needless to say, measuring empathy is crucial in this field, as the challenge is to replicate real-life conditions in order to encourage total learner engagement.
Experiments: a source of enriching and multidisciplinary encounters
Although part of the thesis is initially devoted to reading scientific literature, this does not mean that it is inward-looking. To carry out her two experiments, she relies on a well-defined protocol, thanks to well-crafted scenarios in the 11 simulators developed by her colleagues in the simulation center (nursing instructors, 3D developers, project managers). Anne-Sophie also meets with 52 students at nursing training institutes (IFSI) in Nouvelle Aquitaine. These meetings were very enriching. First of all, because the experiments test the validity of the hypotheses put forward in her thesis, and the results of the work are complementary building blocks for improving the simulators offered by the company, in particular by integrating expressive virtual patients to promote learner acquisition.
Thanks to her thesis, she has gained a comprehensive overview of how to promote digital training in companies. Building on this experience, Anne-Sophie is now turning her attention to entrepreneurship, with a project offering personalized support to companies in their innovation, research, and development projects.
