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Pioneering Immersive Learning
David Neville, PhD, MS, works at the intersection of humanistic scholarship, immersive technology, and instructional design. With more than 30 years in higher education, he helps institutions use extended reality (XR), generative AI, learning analytics, and hybrid curriculum design to create more experiential, accessible, and meaningful learning environments.
For over a decade, David has been at the forefront of digital innovation in the humanities. As Digital Liberal Arts Specialist at Grinnell College, David brought emerging technologies into classrooms across disciplines and founded the Immersive Experiences Lab, where faculty and students collaborated on projects in virtual reality (VR), interactive storytelling, digital cultural heritage, and hybrid pedagogy. The lab became a proving ground for how immersive media can transform the study of culture, history, language, and human experience.
David understands the digital humanities as a space where technology and humanistic inquiry meet. His work brings XR, generative AI, learning analytics (including xAPI), and creative design into dialogue with the interpretive traditions of the humanities. His current research focuses particularly on immersive environments for second language and culture acquisition, historical reconstruction, and cultural interpretation, including how AI and interaction data can support adaptive feedback, student engagement, and meaningful assessment. At the center of this work is the conviction that digital tools, thoughtfully designed and collaboratively developed, can expand access to humanistic inquiry without sacrificing the humanities’ core commitments to curiosity, empathy, interpretation, and cultural understanding.
As Principal Investigator on a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Digital Humanities Advancement Grant, David led the development of the Virtual Viking Longship Project, a historically grounded VR environment that allows students to step into the past as an explorable learning space. The project combined archival and historical research, 3D modeling, scanning, Unity development, immersive storytelling, user testing, and evidence-based instructional design. Undergraduates participated in every stage of development, gaining marketable digital, collaborative, and project-based skills.
Bridging Disciplines, Leading Change
David’s background spans Medieval Studies, German Studies, computer science, immersive media, and instructional design. He has produced more than 90 publications, projects, and presentations in digital and spatial humanities, XR, game-based learning, second language and culture acquisition, and hybrid education. His current research explores how immersive environments deepen humanistic inquiry, support narrative-driven experiential learning, and expand access to cultural heritage.
David holds a PhD in German Language and Literature from Washington University in St. Louis and an MS in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences from Utah State University. He has also completed the Google Project Management Certificate and is preparing for the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) certification, strengthening his ability to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives using formal project management and Agile methods.
Service to the profession is central to David’s work. He is a founding member of the international Plus Ultra Collective, a nonprofit organization dedicated to integrating humanistic studies with technology to preserve cultural materials and advance public understanding. He also serves as a Senior Editorial Board Member for the International Journal of Emerging and Disruptive Innovation in Education: VISIONARIUM and is an active member of EDUCAUSE.
Adventures Off the Clock
Outside his professional life, David draws energy from weightlifting, bass guitar, and gravel cycling. His Salsa Fargo, Alsviðr, carried him through Prairie Burn 100 and RAGBRAI 2025, and he is already planning a bikepacking tour across Northern Europe and Iceland. That same mix of endurance, curiosity, and disciplined exploration shapes his professional work: pushing limits, finding rhythm, and building new pathways for learning. If your institution is ready to imagine new possibilities for the digital humanities, David is ready to help build the future with you.
(Render by David Neville / Meadhall hearth in Blender)
(Professional Photo by Rachael Venema/Jennifer Weinman Photography)