Current students

Subscribe to Current students

Canadian Cap and Trade Simulation (CCTS) is a serious game/simulation designed to teach undergraduate Chemical Engineering and Environmental Studies students about carbon tax and trade systems in Canada created by PhD candidate Alex Fleck and Dr. Jason Grove.

Fifteen Games Institute members presented at CHI 2022 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) both online and from the conference venue in New Orleans Louisiana from April 30^th-May 5^th. Research topics included realism in games, VR, smart glasses, livestreaming, and more!

Excitingly, this year’s CHI included an opening Keynote by GI Advisory Board member, Dr. Kishonna Gray (University of Kentucky), one of the world’s foremost experts on the interactions between race, gender, games, and technology.

The Games Institute (GI) is currently accepting applications for our first-ever seed funding competition! Both students and faculty are eligible to apply for this funding of up to $15,000 per proposal.

This program is in place to promote interdisciplinary collaborations between interdisciplinary researchers and to encourage researchers to reach out to colleagues outside their home disciplines with whom they have not worked previously.

Games Institute (GI) and Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) researchers have been working together on strategies to better educate the public about how the application of nanotechnology (the manipulation of materials on an atomic or molecular scale) impacts our daily lives. The first of these projects focuses on educating the public about how DNA-based nasal sprays can be used as intranasal vaccines during this crucial time.

Professor Darren Wershler spoke to Sabrina Marandola for CBC Radio on March 14th 2022, about teaching his class “Video Games and/as Theory” at Concordia University within Minecraft during the pandemic.

Games Institute postdoctoral fellow Dr. John Muñoz and NASA Distinguished Research Associate Dr. Alan Pope are presenting their research on biofeedback and games at the Games Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 21st.

Games Institute Executive Director Neil Randall and other representatives from The University of Waterloo are working together on a trans-Atlantic collaboration with The University of Warwick, focusing on collegiate esports.

Members of the two schools have been meeting to share their experiences and discuss ways that they can help each other innovate and grow their esports programs.

UW Professor Ian Rowlands, Associate Vice-President, International, explains,

The virtual reality experience “Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation” (DOHR) was recently peer-reviewed in Reviews in Digital Humanities volume 3 issue 1 on January 18^th, 2022.

The DOHR project uses VR to explore the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children (NSHCC) as part of the curriculum for Grade 11 Canadian History students in Nova Scotia. NSHCC was opened in 1921 and operated until the 1980s and former Residents have come forward with stories of the physical, psychological, and sexual abuse they suffered there as children.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Imagined Histories of Sexual Technologies With Dr. Bo Ruberg

Today’s interactive and playful technologies are increasingly intersecting with technologies of sex. Yet these intersections also have long histories. Tracing these histories—and challenging the ways that they are often told—has important implications for how we understand the cultural origins of contemporary video games and other forms of digital media.

On December 2nd Matt Parker, a professor at the NYU Games Center, presented his work focusing on games and climate change to the researchers at the GI. Professor Parker taught the GI’s members about “carbon removal”, a technology that uses machines to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Parker emphasized that because emissions goals have not been met, even if people never released any more CO2 again, we would still need to remove carbon from the atmosphere to survive.

Current students

Cap and Trade Game and Project "Postmortem" With Alex Fleck and Dr. Jason Grove

Games Institute researchers present work at ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Games Institute Launches Seed Funding Program

Games Institute and Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology partner to create educational game about nasal spray COVID-19 vaccine

GI Academic partner Darren Wershler interviewed by Sabrina Marandola for CBC Radio about teaching in Minecraft

Games Institute Researcher Dr. John Muñoz to present “How NASA Has Translated Aerospace Research into Biofeedback Game Experiences” at the Game Developers Conference with collaborator and NASA Researcher Dr. Alan Pope

University of Waterloo Announces Esports Collaboration with The University of Warwick in The UK

VR experience “Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation” (DOHR) peer-reviewed in Reviews in Digital Humanities

Imagined Histories of Sexual Technologies With Dr. Bo Ruberg

Matt Parker: Carbon Collector

Departments Involved

Research Centres