Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Brianna Wiens took an unconventional path to the GI starting as a PhD student at York University who visited the GI as part of a crew filming a documentary about qCollaborative (qLab)—a feminist design research lab with members from multiple Canadian universities, including UW.
An interview with Dr. Kristina R. Llewellyn about the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation project
On March 16, Dr. Shana MacDonald (Communication Arts) spoke with Joe Scarpelli on Global News about the recent social media controversy surrounding Kate Middleton Princess of Wales.
Visiting scholar, Eléa Thuilier (University of Galway) presented her research to the Waterloo community at the Games Institute which focuses on designing and assessing virtual rehabilitation through Exergames for people with Osteoporosis.
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.
Children are seeking their place in contemporary digital cultures, notably through the use of mobile devices, playing a variety of games with friends and accessing social networking platforms, resulting in interconnected performances in the digital setting. Therefore, it was necessary to base it on connective ethnography to track the interactions of a group of children between physical and digital spaces during playtime with peers.
This event will be held in HYBRID format. Please join us in-person at the Games Institute, EC1 at the University of Waterloo or virtually through Microsoft Teams.
Speaker: Bruna Oliveira
Bruna is a Ph.D. candidate in Education at the Federal University of Sergipe and a visiting researcher at the University of Waterloo. She has been researching topics involving children's engagement with digital games, children's playful experiences with digital technologies, children as content producers, and research methodologies involving children in the digital era.
Members of The First Three Years Project PhD candidate Kenzie Gordon (University of Alberta), Dr. Jennifer Whitson (Sociology & Legal Studies), Dr. Johanna Weststar (Western University), and Dr. Sean Gouglas (University of Alberta) published an op-ed in The Conversationto unpack why so many layoffs are currently happening in the games industry.
GI Faculty Member and Canada Research Chair (CRC) Dr. Lai-Tze Fan (Sociology and Legal Studies) recently appeared on a panel hosted by the TRuST Scholarly Network in collaboration with the Perimeter Institute and on the CTV news show The Mike Farwell Show to discuss her work on the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI).
Series editors Drs. Neil Randall (Executive Director) and Steve Wilcox (Alum) have already published two new edited collections as part of their Palgrave Games in Context series this year. Previous publications in the series have spoken on aspects of feminism within games, theory and practice within tabletop roleplaying communities, and critical reflections on games like Minecraft. The two latest additions to the series continue the critical examination of games within the context of our culture, technology, politics, and more.
In Spring 2023, the GI staff began the task of turning their office into a green-certified space.