Jessica Ackerman is a second-year doctoral student in the School of Nursing, McMaster University. Her work focuses on peer-based self-management support for patients diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. The aim of Jessica’s thesis work is to facilitate access to self-management care with the use of immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies.

Supervised by Dr. Michael McGillion, Jessica has partnered with international digital health and industry experts, social enterprise leaders, oncology specialists, and patients to co-design an immersive VR intervention to support the care of patients diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.