Biographies
Jim Bizzocchi
Jim Bizzocchi is an Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University. Jim’s research interests include interactive narrative, game design, and the future of the televisual moving image. His scholarship typically relies on close-reading to reveal the design and poetics embedded within media and new media artifacts and experiences. His writings on these topics have appeared in a number of books, scholarly journals, and conference proceedings. He has taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses related to his research interests, and is a recipient of the University Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a recognized expert on educational technology, and a past-President of the Canadian Association for Distance Education. Jim is also a practicing artist - his Ambient Video art pieces complement and inform his scholarly writing on the future of the moving image.
Heather Chaplin
Heather Chaplin is an assistant professor of journalism at The New School and author of the book, Smartbomb: The Quest for Art Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution. On the topic of videogames, she has been interviewed for and cited in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Businessweek, and The Believer and has appeared on shows such as Talk of the Nation, and CBS Sunday Morning. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, GQ, Details, and Salon. She is a regular contributor on game culture for All Things Considered.
Theresa Chen
Theresa Chen is a game producer and designer currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. She spent her undergraduate and graduate years at Carnegie Mellon, graduating frgahom the ETC in 2010. Currently an assistant producer for the Sims Web team, she focuses her energies on creating and sustaining the ever-expanding Sims 3 community. Ever interested in games that target the atypical consumer audience, she hopes to one day lead the production of new titles that reach non-gamer players.
Sarah Chu
Sarah Chu is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests are centered on video games, education, and visual culture. In particular, she is interested in the design of digital exhibits and games in science museums and how visitors learn in and around them. Prior to attending UW-Madison, Sarah worked as a learning technology consultant at Ryerson University. She holds an MEd in Educational Technology from York University and an Honors BA in Visual Studies from University of Toronto. She has worked on Constance Steinkuehler’s Pop.Cosmo research team to examine learning and literacy in and around massively multiplayer online games. Currently, she works at the Morgridge Institute for Research where she develops video games for learning science.
Drew Davidson
Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories across texts, comics, games and other media. He is the Director of the Entertainment Technology Center – Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University and the Editor of ETC Press. http://waxebb.com/
Simon Ferrari
Simon Ferrari is a doctoral researcher in digital media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he studies expressive game design, criticism, and competitive play. His first book, co-authored by Ian Bogost and Bobby Schweizer, is Newsgames: Journalism at Play (MIT Press, 2010).
Alex Games
Alex Games is Education Design Director at Microsoft Game Studios. He is deeply interested in the inseparable relationship between play and learning, and in ways to undo the artificial divide that the educational systems of most nations have created in them. He was formerly Assistant Professor in Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, and Adjunct Professor in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. There he conducted research focused on the relationship between game design and learning at the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab, and co-chaired the Meaningful Play Conference. While conducting his doctoral dissertation with the Games, Learning and Society group at the University of Wisconsin, he played a key role in the design and implementation of Gamestar Mechanic. He is gamer at heart and has an extensive background in game design, software engineering, and robotics.
Stephen Jacobs
Stephen Jacobs is an Associate Professor in the Department of Interactive Games and Media and the Director of the Lab for Technological Literacy at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he teaches courses in game history, analysis, design and writing. He also currently serves as the Visiting Scholar at The International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong National Museum of Play where he assists in exhibit design and collections interpretation. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Game Design and Development Education (http://gameeducationjournal.org).
Andy Jih
Andy Jih is a producer and game designer living and working in Pittsburgh, PA. He most recently was the VP of Production at Evil Genius Designs, a Pittsburgh start-up company focused on bridging the gap between game design and location-based entertainment through the use of mobile devices. Prior to Evil Genius Designs, Andy was a producer at Schell Games where he worked on projects ranging from Nintendo Wii titles and an original IP Nintendo DSi game to an interactive theme park attraction at Epcot.
Adrian Avery “Dee” Johnson
Adrian Avery-Johnson is a graduating senior at Malcolm Shabazz City High School in Madison, WI. He has always wondered about the mystical, behind the scenes machinations of the modern library, which has led him to his current pursuit of a Masters in Library and Information Sciences. For much of his life gaming has served as an outlet for energy and emotions that he did not have the tools to deal with. As he approaches the close of his high school career and moves forward with his education, he has decided to limit the time he spends in MMORPGS to weekends, while re-initiating a previous weekly devotion to Dungeons & Dragons.
Scott Juster
Scott Juster is a writer and a graduate student studying History. Along with Jorge Albor, he produces essays and podcasts for www.experiencepoints.net , a website dedicated to the serious, but not humorless, analysis of video games. He also posts bi-weekly on the PopMatters blog, “Moving Pixels,” in which he writes about game design and the cultural significance of video games. His interests also include video game preservation and the historical relationship between video games and other media.
Richard Lemarchand
Richard Lemarchand is a Lead Game Designer at Naughty Dog and is currently working on the studio’s forthcoming game, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. He was the Co-Lead Designer of the award-winning, critically praised Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which was widely acclaimed as the Game of the Year for 2009. Richard has been a professional game designer since 1991, working mainly in the field of character-action console games. He worked on Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Jak 3 and Jak X: Combat Racing for Naughty Dog, and helped create the successful game series Gex, Pandemonium and Soul Reaver at Crystal Dynamics. He organizes the annual GDC Microtalks, is on the faculty of the GDC Experimental Gameplay Sessions, is an Advisor and sometime Conference Co-chair of IndieCade, and is involved with GLS and Games for Change. Born in England, he grew up in a small rural town, dreaming of ancient civilizations and outer space. Perhaps as a result, he has a degree in Physics and Philosophy from Oxford University
Crystle Martin
Crystle Martin is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction – Educational Communications and Technology at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying with Professor Constance Steinkuehler. She is a researcher on Professor Steinkuehler’s PopCosmo research team and a member of the Games+Learning+Society group. Crystle’s research interests include information literacy, online reading comprehension, informal learning, online communities, and MMOs. Her upcoming dissertation will focus on information literacy in online affinity spaces. She has a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Wayne State University and Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Latin/Classics from Michigan State University.
Matt McLean
Matt McLean has earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Central Michigan University and a Master’s degree in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. He currently resides in San Francisco, California working as a producer in the games industry. He is also a writer, photographer, designer, artist and daydreamer. Matt believes in the power of interactive experiences to help make the world a better, inspiring, and more playful place. He can be contacted at matt.m.mclean@gmail.com, and he invites you to visit his website at http://mmclean.webs.com.
Eli Neiburger
Eli Neiburger is the Associate Director for IT & Production at the Ann Arbor District Library, where he is responsible for IT, software development, marketing, and events, including AADL’s industry-leading videogame tournament series. He is the creator of gtsystem (http://wiki.gtsystem.org) a free web service for libraries to rungaming tournaments, which has been used to organize multi-library simultaneous tournaments for the American Library Association’s National Gaming Day @ Your Library. Eli produced videogame venues for the Sandbox Symposium and SIGGRAPH 2009, and is the author of “Gamers... in the LIBRARY?!” published in 2007. He serves on the board of Bricks for Brains (a small LEGO events & education nonprofit), Library Renewal (working to solve the challenges of digital distribution for libraries) and is the chairman of the Jhai Foundation, working to bring internet-powered telemedicine and economic development to rural villages in the developing world.
Amanda Ochsner
Amanda Ochsner joined Games+Learning+Society group and the department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the fall of 2010. She is working with Constance Steinkuehler and her PopCosmo research group. Amanda’s research interests focus around games for adolescent girls, as well as issues of identity formation through video game play and by participating in online gaming communities. For the past few years, she has worked as a freelance writer and editor on the press side of the games industry as an editor for IGN’s Green Pixels site and as a freelance writer. Currently she spends much of her time writing for the family-focused game site What They Play. One of her more recent projects is a series of interviews with parents who play video games with their children. Amanda received her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Minnesota, Morris in 2008.
Charles Palmer
Charles Palmer serves as director of the Center for Advanced Entertainment & Learning Technologies, at Harrisburg University, where he leads developments in digital storytelling and entertainment technology. As a creative educator, administrator, and producer with fifteen years experience in New Media development, his current work focuses on the learning side of games and how games can shape STEM educational initiatives.
Arthur Protasio
Arthur Protasio is a writer, researcher and producer of narratives and games. As a bachelor of laws with an additional degree in digital media and technology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, he coordinates CTS Game Studies, a game research and development project from the Center for Technology and Society at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro. Given his interdisciplinary profile, his law and game studies involve the analysis of game prohibitions in Brazil and the importance of advocating free speech and proper ratings for the game medium. As a speaker, Arthur not only gives talks on these academic topics and the value of games as works of expression, but also runs the LudoBardo videolog aimed at discussing narrative in games. Additionally, he organizes, along with fellow independent producers, Gamerama, a game design collective, dedicated to integrating the Brazilian game design community, focused on developing experimental projects through prototype oriented methodology. His fictional and academic writing are available at www.vagrantbard.com.
Chris Pruett
By day, Chris Pruett is a Senior Game Developer Advocate at Google, focused on Android. Under the cover of night he writes indie games and blogs about horror game design. The views expressed here are his alone and not those of his employer. Chris lives in Cupertino, California with his wife and daughter.
Matthew Sakey
Matthew Sakey is a freelance games journalist, consultant, and industry analyst, and is a sought-after guest speaker at university games curricula and gaming conferences. For the past seven years he has been a featured monthly writer for International Game Developers Association, where he writes about the influence of gaming on culture in his column Culture Clash (www.igda.org/culture-clash). Matt also owns and maintains the popular gaming and entertainment website Tap-Repeatedly (http://tap-repeatedly.com), and works as an e-Learning developer, helping corporations bring games-based training to life. He lives in Michigan. Reach him at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
Mark Sivak
Mark was born in Groton, Massachusetts in 1983. During his childhood he cultivated a love for games, play and competition with his two brothers, Seth and Scott. Mark received education from Northeastern University, where he currently teaches in the Creative Industries Program. His love for games was not sated in the engineering field so he clawed his way into the video games industry with research in games for rehabilitation, education, and player experience. He currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Francisco Souki
Francisco was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela and moved to Pittsburgh, PA in his early twenties to purse his Masters at Carnegie Mellon University. He currently works in Pittsburgh as a Game Designer and is a co-creator of Friends on Play, a podcast about game design. His work has been shown in Pittsburgh, New York, Las Vegas, Italy, South Korea, Singapore and Spain. He enjoys games of all kinds, traveling the world, European soccer and media-based, unconventional storytelling. If you wish to know more about him, Google might be a good starting point. http://www.franciscosouki.com
Constance Steinkuehler
Constance Steinkuehler is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Communications and Technology (ECT) program in the Curriculum and Instruction department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is a founding fellow of the GLS Initiative at UW–Madison and chairs the annual GLS conference held each summer in Madison. Her research on cognition, learning, and literacy in MMOs has been funded by the MacArthur Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Academic ADL Co-Lab, including research on such commercial titles as Lineage I, Lineage II, Star Wars Galaxies, and World of Warcraft. She earned her PhD in literacy studies in curriculum and instruction in 2005, her M.S. in educational psychology in 2000, and three simultaneous B.A.s in Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies in 1993. She teaches graduate courses in research in online virtual worlds, analyzing online social interaction, critical instructional practices on the Internet, and gender and technology, and an undergraduate course in digital media, pop culture, and learning. She sits on the editorial board of several journals including the Journal of the Learning Sciences, the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, and Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media. She is the Chair of the AERA SIG “Media, Culture, and Curriculum,” sits on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Gaming, Simulations, and Education, and recently received a NAS/Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship.
Joshua Tanenbaum
Joshua Tanenbaum (www.thegeekmovement.com) Josh is a PhD student in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, studying games and narrative. His research seeks to understand the narrative pleasures of interactive experiences through a combination of close reading and design research methodologies. His work bridges the worlds of performing arts theory, embodied interaction, tangible and ubiquitous interfaces, wearable computing, nonverbal communication, and literary theory. When not writing about (and playing) games, Josh also enjoys game design. One of his projects – a multi-touch tabletop game called Futura, the Sustainable Futures Game – was showcased in the City of Surrey’s Sustainability Pavilion at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Futura has since become the subject of an ongoing research project investigating the effects of a serious game on public engagement around sustainability issues. Josh has also won design awards for his costume and prop creations, his short films, and for his writings on social media. Josh is currently editing a book on Nonverbal Communication in Virtual Worlds, to be released by ETC-Press in 2012.
Alice Taylor
Founder, Makieworld
Alice Taylor has worked with internet-delivered content for entertainment and education since 1995. Outgoing Commissioning Editor for Education at Channel 4, Alice spent the last three years commissioning award-winning digital products targeting teens and tweens. In December 2010, Alice announced her intention to leave Channel 4 in order to pursue a 3D printed network-aware toymaking startup: Makieworld. Alice writes a personal blog, Wonderland at www.wonderlandblog.com and has contributed variously on the subjects of games, new media and technology for the BBC, New Statesman, The Guardian, Paste, and more.
Greg Trefry
Greg Trefry has wide array of experience designing games—everything from web-based MMOs to hit casual games to alternate reality games. He co-founded the game design studio Gigantic Mechanic to explore the bounds of game design through mobile games that interact with the real-world. He serves as director of the Come Out & Play Festival, a festival of street games in New York City. Greg teaches at New York University and recently wrote the book, Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us.
Jason Vandenberghe
Jason VandenBerghe is a Creative Director at Ubisoft. He has been designing and producing games for about sixteen years, with tours of duty at EA, at Activision, and now at Ubisoft. He has no plans to stop any time soon.
Much of his time had been spent working on big licenses (James Bond, Lord of the Rings, X-Men, and the like), but recently he’s been branching out and making actual *game* games, which is a nice change of pace. His latest effort was the semi-critically-acclaimed Red Steel 2, which was all about swinging the Wii Remote around like a sword, and defied the skeptics by being pretty darn good.
Jason is currently working on not-very-secret Ubisoft projects, but hasn’t told anyone which one(s) yet. He lives in Paris, which is really weird, man.
Caroline “Caro” Williams
Caroline “Caro” Williams is a PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a focus in Mathematics Education and a joint Masters in Mathematics and Mathematics Education. Her adviser is Dr. Amy Ellis, whom she works with on two major research projects: the Inductive and Deductive In-and-Out of Mathematics (IDIOM) grant with Drs. Knuth and Kalish (www.idiom.wceruw.org); and the Supporting Proof in Algebra through Reasoning with Quantities (SPARQ) grant. Caro studies cognition and learning in Massively Multiplayer Online games (http://gameslearningsociety.org/research/cognition-and-learning-in-mmos) as a member of the Games+Learning+Society group and Dr. Steinkuehler’s PopCosmo research team. Caro’s many interests bridge the worlds of math education and gaming, with particular interest in: (a) virtual worlds that are designed as supplemental to classroom content, as well as what types of mathematics learning are intended and actually instantiated within those dynamic environments; (b) commercially produced virtual worlds that have mathematics content and learning quietly embedded in the game structure, and the types of learning that occur as a result; and (c) the general constraints and affordances that games may have for different populations as they enter and participate within the designed “worlds.” Currently, she is working on a design-based research project focused on the design, evaluation, and iteration of Little Big Planet (www.littlebigplanet.com) worlds that support an informal understanding of the Cartesian coordinate plane.
José P. Zagal
Dr. José P. Zagal is a game designer, scholar, and researcher. He is Assistant Professor at the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University where he teaches game design, online communities, and ethics. His research work explores the development of frameworks for describing, analyzing, and understanding games from a critical perspective to help inform the design of better games. He is also interested in supporting games literacy through the use of collaborative learning environments. His book on this topic, “Ludoliteracy: Defining, Understanding, and Supporting Games Education”, was recently published by ETC Press. Dr. Zagal is on the editorial board of Games & Culture, the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, and the Journal of the Canadian Gaming Studies Organization. He is also a member of the executive board of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). José received his PhD in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008, his M.Sc. in engineering sciences and a B.S. in industrial engineering from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 1999 and 1997. Further information on his work is available at: http://facsrv.cs.depaul.edu/~jzagal/