Alex Howland, Ph.D.
About Alex Howland, Ph.D.
Alex Howland, Ph.D., is the Co-Founder and President of Virbela, with a background in behavioral and organizational psychology. He has led the development of social virtual reality platforms and secured significant financial support for research and innovation.
Title
Alex Howland, Ph.D., holds the position of Co-Founder & President at Virbela. He has been in this role since 2018, following his tenure as Co-Founder & CEO of the same company from 2012 to 2018.
Previous Experience
Alex Howland has a diverse professional background. He has served as Faculty at Alliant International University and a Lecturer at the University of California San Diego. Additionally, he worked as Program Director of VirBELA at UC San Diego's Rady Center for Executive Development, and as an Institutional Researcher at National University. His earlier roles include being an Advanced Statistics Teaching Assistant at Alliant International University and a Consultant at the Organizational Consulting Center. He has also held directorial positions at the Duxbury Bay Maritime School and Community Boating Center in New Bedford.
Education and Expertise
Alex Howland earned his Ph.D. in Consulting Psychology from Alliant International University, where he conducted significant research on simulated training environments. He also holds an Executive Leadership Development Certificate for Science & Technology Management from the University of California, San Diego's Rady School of Management. Furthermore, he completed a Certificate Program in Mastering Scale at Harvard Business School Online. Alex's academic journey began with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Providence College and included a Study Abroad program at The University of Notre Dame Australia.
Achievements
Throughout his career, Alex Howland has led the development of social virtual reality platforms used by institutions like Stanford GSB and MIT for distance executive education. His work with Virbela has transitioned multi-billion dollar companies to virtual environments and contributed to the training of national defense personnel. Alex has secured financial support from prominent organizations such as the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the National Science Foundation, the Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Foundation, and the American Psychological Association. His pioneering research found that virtual training environments can have psychological effects similar to real-life sessions, and he raised $1.7 million to develop Virbela into a solution for borderless organizational structures.