On November 7, 2023, entertainment pioneers descended on the Paramount Theater in Los Angeles for a celebration recognizing technological innovation. Named for groundbreaking actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, the Hedy Lamarr Awards bestows accolades to trailblazing figures in entertainment technology and promising talents on the rise. Among them was USC Iovine and Young Academy student Grace MacPherson, honored at this year’s event with a 2023 Hedy Lamarr Achievement Award for Emerging Leaders in Entertainment Technology. The prize recognizes female college students whose studies in the realm of entertainment and technology have shown remarkable potential. MacPherson has dedicated her academic career to the exploration of the “bounds of how technology drives imagination.” (An illuminating description she dropped in her acceptance speech). For this IYA senior, even with the weight of this prestigious honor on her shoulders, the award is only the beginning. 

Augmented reality and inventive storytelling are at the heart of MacPherson’s work – a cutting-edge synthesis filled with possibility that the Awards jury took note of in her application. 

“I first fell in love with technology, because I knew when tech was merged with the right story, whatever complicated contraptions were created would melt away, and the audience would see magic. When the illusion lines up and the strings disappear, it feels as if anything is possible. I’ve always been inspired by experiences that make you forget the rules of physics, and sweep you away within their narrative. That has always been my driving force,” MacPherson explained when accepting the honor. 

MacPherson was in good company at this year’s Hedy Lamarr ceremony – VP and GM of TV platforms at Google Shalini Govil-Pai took home an award for Innovation in Entertainment Technology and USC School of Cinematic Arts Dean Elizabeth Daley received an Inspiration Award for embracing new technology in curriculum and practice. MIT student Lily Chen also earned an Emerging Leaders honor. 

MacPherson is in the early stages of an ascending professional journey. Not only has she created immersive experiences for museums, developed an augmented reality logo-design company, and thoroughly investigated the use of NFC (near-field communication, meaning short-field wireless technologies) and RFID’s (Radio Frequency Identification), she’s currently polishing her Garage Experience capstone project, a themed entertainment art experience that immerses participants in a country’s history and culture. 

“I think there's a way that technology can help transform the day to day to make stories feel more vibrant, more alive, to make people feel more like their characters rather than audience members. I think they really resonated with that work of mine. And so I think spending ages on that, ever since I was really young, when I was working in augmented reality, trying to figure out how you can use computer generated images on top of reality to make things feel more magical,” MacPherson says of her devotion to unconventional storytelling and design. 

The initiation of magic is a concept that comes up often when MacPherson characterizes her technological objectives. A habitual admirer of the enchantment of theme parks, MacPherson has long been inspired to help audiences choose their own adventures when it comes to memorable events and interactions. She became enamored with the art of capturing the essence of feeling like you’re a part of a story, not just watching it unfold. 

MacPherson aspires to enable people to completely engage in augmented and digital attractions and games, so much so that they transform from viewer to autonomous main character. She’s taking what she’s learned in immersive theater and art and seeing how she can apply it to entertainment in original ways (hence the award recognition). 

That’s also where her Garage Experience capstone project at IYA comes in. The full scope of the initiative is being kept under wraps, but MacPherson reveals the idea is reflective of her quest to convey narratives through unique avenues that deeply connect individuals to a new culture. She’s been conducting research on a country’s unique style of storytelling and construction to make sure she can utilize the right technology to fully draw in audiences. 

Through it all, IYA has been central to MacPherson’s growth as an innovator and technological pathfinder.

“What led me to IYA is the knowledge that the industry I wanted to go in was no one thing,” she shares. “It had that freedom to just create an experiment and do what I felt like I needed to learn. It felt, because themed entertainment as an industry is so different from every other industry, totally different.” 

Now that MacPherson has formally been named an emerging leader in entertainment technology, she’s looking forward to solidifying her impact on the field’s future by continuing her work in augmented reality and beyond. She envisions more customized narratives in experiences so they feel more unique and personal. Magic may be at the core of her passion, but she’s realistic about her concrete capacity to shape the narrative landscape.

“I really hope to help further the use of technology to create more customized narratives so that story feels more unique and personal. I'm no clairvoyant. I don't know what comes next, but I think as long as I work on things that help do that, that's what matters most to me,” she says. “As people are coming less from just film and more from experience game design and increasing that agency and making sure players have choices, I think that's really interesting. And I think that's going to have a really important impact on the future of the industry, and I hope to be a part of that wave that's coming.”

amed for groundbreaking actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, the Hedy Lamarr Awards bestows accolades to trailblazing figures in entertainment technology and promising talents on the rise. Among them was USC Iovine and Young Academy student Grace MacPherson.

IYA Student Honored With Achievement Award for Emerging Leaders in Entertainment Technology