Our Team

Maxwell Planck, CEO & Co-Founder

Max graduated from MIT in 2004 with a degree in computer science (specializing in computer graphics).  After graduation, he worked at Pixar for 10 years as a technical director working on movies like Cars, WALL-E, Up, Brave, and The Good Dinosaur creating creative technology around lighting, shading, animation, and simulation.

He cofounded Oculus Story Studio in 2014 where he produced and supervised some of the early groundbreaking, award winning narrative experiences in VR including Lost, Henry, Dear Angelica, and Wolves in the Walls. Max won an Emmy for his work with Henry and Wolves in the Walls. He won a Lumiere and Peabody Award for Dear Angelica.

Max loves video games, board games, jigsaw puzzles, immersive theater (he saw Speakeasy SF 5 times!), role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons (DM for 4 years). He grew up adoring game shows like Double Dare and Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Max’s biggest adventure to date: Max and his wife are obsessed with escape rooms, having escaped 90+ together. His proudest and most adventurous moment is when he used the final puzzle of an escape room to propose.

Milad Nazeri, Managing Partner

Milad Nazeri has had an eclectic career from audio engineering and producing music for TV/FILM, editing commercials and creating visual effects for some of the biggest agencies in NYC, and being a software developer for web and VR in San Francisco.

Milad's life is an endless ADD adventure that always makes room for serendipity. His favorite adventure has been renting an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere in Germany and shooting a documentary making music and VR with this best friend all around Europe. The last two days he flew his then-girlfriend to Berlin to propose on the steps of a palace in Potsdam, because sure why not?

Kimberly Adams, Co-Founder

Kim has a passion for working with genius artists and engineers to create things that have never been done before. Specializing in leadership and team development on creative innovation teams, she has deep experience in the entertainment, software, and hardware industries. 

Before co-founding Adventure Lab, Kim led a creative team at Facebook in developing the AR “Story Time” for Facebook’s Portal video device. Kim was the Head of Production and Executive Producer of the groundbreaking Wolves in the Walls at Emmy Award-winning Oculus Story Studio. Prior to that, Kim was part of the leadership team at Google Spotlight Stories, where she produced some of the first VR projects released world-wide.

From 2009-2013, Kim was a Producer at Pixar Animation Studios, where she led the creation of a new short film division, heading a team of 125 across two companies in two countries. She partnered with eight new directors, producing 13 Toy Story and Cars short films while shepherding the development of a multitude of additional Pixar short-format projects, including two television specials.

Previous to Pixar, Kim served as a visual effects producer on several feature films including Apocalypto, where she was on location in the jungles of Mexico for seven months. She also worked at Asylum Visual Effects on films such as Master and Commander, which was nominated for an Oscar for visual effects.

Kim is a member of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, The Television Academy, The Producers Guild of America, and Women in Animation. Kim has spoken across the globe at conferences and universities on the topics of virtual reality and diversity.

Kim’s biggest adventures to date are: filming on location in the jungles of Mexico while dodging poisonous snakes and spiders, Motherhood, and co-founding a start-up!

Ari Tarr, Lead Host

Jasper has been producing, directing and performing multimedia immersive experiences for 2 decades. He has been an executive consultant and developer in the VR industry for 6 years, creating experiences for companies like River Studios, JauntVR, and High Fidelity. Jasper's favorite shows with adventure lab have been following the wild imaginations of younger players, helping them to dream bigger and better!

Geneviève Flati, Host

Geneviève has puppeteered with The Jim Henson Company since 2015, performing in Brian Henson's Puppet Up Uncensored! at the Jim Henson Company's Charlie Chaplin Soundstage in Hollywood, and at the Charles M. Schulz Theater for Knott’s Scary Farm. She puppeteered for the new Jim Henson Company TV show, Earth to Ned, coming soon to Disney+. "G" has done two international tours with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as clown and sketch writer. She performed at Disneyland for 7 years as a puppeteer for Disney Junior Live on Stage and an improv stage performer in Tommorowland. She has worked extensively as a VR host in 2 games featured on the Oculus- The Under Presents and The Tempest.

Geneviève is the founder and director of (Wo)men Rule Broadway, a nonprofit production company, which just made its international debut in London at the Vault Theater Festival 2020. She currently works as a pediatric hospital performer through Healthy Humor Nonprofit. She has studied and performed improv with the Upright Citizens Brigade, Second City Hollywood, iO West, Nerdist, and the Improv Space. She has been a house team member of Improv Shmimprov for almost 10 years and is a house team member for Fancy Hobo musical improv.  “G” teaches improv, puppeteering, and acting at McCoyRigby Arts Conservatory.

Her favorite adventure was when she broke her leg in Mexico, but didn’t tell anyone for 2 days because she wanted to climb the pyramids before she had to go to the hospital

Jacquie Barnbrook, Host

Jaquie has dedicated her whole life to some form of entertainment including the unintentional prat fall. Growing up she was in every play, dance recital, skating show, and living room karaoke extravaganza she could get entry to. Her focus has always been comedy and she has had the privilege to work as an actor - on camera, performance capture and voice for Film, Television, Gaming and Virtual Reality.

Some of her greatest but more serious adventures started 20+ years ago in visual effects, animation and VR working with A level Producers and Directors both as a Producer and an Actor. Her most notable achievement was Producing and co-Directing “The ChubbChubbs!” which won an Academy Award in 2002. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, The Producers Guild of America, The British Academy, The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and a board member of The Impro Theatre in Los Angeles. That said, she works very hard to encourage joy and side-splitting laughter to all that she creates.

Max Maliga, Host

Max has been performing comedy for more than a decade. His love of improv and sketch comedy blossomed at HUGE theater and The Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis. Max received his BFA in film from Occidental College and has more than 10 years experience working in the film industry including stops at Lucasfilm and Albuquerque Studios. Currently Max works as the Managing Director at Killing My Lobster, the Bay Area's premier sketch comedy company, where he has also worked as an actor, director, writer and teacher. His favorite adventures are parenthood (which just started 7 months ago!) and his year of backpacking through Central America and Southeast Asia in 2010.

Advisors