The Games Institute (GI) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Waterloo, advancing the study of interactive and immersive technologies and experiences.
News Bites
Stay up-to-date with the latest GI activities. Our News Bites report on recent conferences, keynote addresses, and recent research activities of our members.
Research Spotlights
For more in-depth breakdowns of ongoing research projects, check out our Research Spotlights for full write ups of events and up close and personal testimonies with our researchers and members.
News
Delegation from KidsAbility visit the GI
On June 17, the GI welcomed communication experts, researchers, and students from KidsAbility to showcase the various research conducted by GI members. Along with Brendan Wylie-Toal, the Director of Research & Innovation at KidsAbility, the group also toured the GI facility to learn more about how GI administration supports membership, research, and connecting academic work with industry, demonstrating previous knowledge mobilization projects. We hope they enjoyed their time here!
Games Institute once again welcomes student visitors from Mexico
Following the success of last year’s visit, GI welcomed another cohort of visitors from Mexico eager to explore the world of games and interactive technology. These students are from the RoboSEIP program managed by Renison University. During the visit, students attended presentations and interactive sessions and participated in research.
Dr. Lai-Tze's U&AI Lab
Dr. Lai-Tze Fan announced her new U&AI Lab funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation! The purpose of Dr. Fan’s work and the creation of the lab will be to examine the systemic oppression integrated into modern AI technology. The U&AI Lab will focus on three case studies in AI using frameworks from social sciences and humanities with STEM research in FATE (fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics): (1) generative textual and language-based AI, (2) facial recognition technologies, and (3) AI hardware and the environment. Dr. Fan also hopes to write a novel that can help others disrupt inequitable AI at critical stages of development and prevent unfair and unethical impacts to end users.
The GI congratulates Dr. Fan on her new project and looks forward to future updates!
Blog
Designing for Accessibility: How a Graduate Student Makes Haptics Research Accessible
It can be very daunting for international students to leave their home countries, communities, friends, and families –upending their lives to further their education. For Ana Lucia Diaz de Leon Derby, finding a community during her master’s degree was crucial to her mental health and well-being.
Critical Play and Interdisciplinary Discourse at the Games Institute
Schmidt’s report outlines how the GI curates an interdisciplinary environment by encouraging staff, students, and faculty to critically play together—and how that act of play creates a common language where research ideas begin to flow. Looking back, the findings of this report continue to ring true today and we hope to continue sponsoring research excellence with this unique method of interdisciplinary creation.
Aspects of Play in Academia - Women of CHI PLAY 2023
From October 10th to October 13th, 2023, CHI PLAY took place at the Stratford School of Business and Interaction Design. In this retrospective, we sit down with GI faculty Drs. Cayley MacArthur, Jen Whitson and Leah Zhang-Kennedy who recount their experiences at CHI PLAY, including what makes it so unique, what they took away from the 2023 conference, and what advice they would give to those looking to attend in the future.