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.
Dr. John Muñoz (J&F Alliance) may be one of the most versatile researchers the GI has ever housed. Just when you think you have heard about everything he has done (working with NASA, creating virtual reality (VR) games, using mind-controlled devices for biofeedback, and working with robots, to just name a few), John brings up another project, in a completely different field than the rest of his work.
Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Katja Rogers (HCI Games Lab) first met her supervisor and GI faculty member, Dr. Lennart Nacke (Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business), at CHI Play in 2016.
Dr. Stuart Hallifax (HCI Games Lab) would describe his life as “falling backwards into every opportunity he’s been given.” So, how did he fall backwards into joining the GI? Stuart’s journey started in Leon, France, where he studied artificial intelligence for his Master’s in Computer Science.
In Spring 2022, UWaterloo welcomed thirty-four Ukrainian students whose, education had been disrupted by the war, to continue their studies at Waterloo. They were sponsored by the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute (Waterloo.AI).
Before coming to Waterloo, Dr. Hector Perez held positions as a research assistant at a Mathematics Research Centre, as a project manager and later as executive assistant to the Vice-President of Administration and Finance at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico. He has travelled extensively (often teaching wherever he goes) and speaks five languages, in addition to understanding a few more.
If Emma Vossen’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because she is one of the earliest members of the Games Institute. She recalls the conversations in the basement of the PAS building on campus or the Rum Runner bar in downtown Kitchener (in 2013!) with Dr. Neil Randall and other graduate students about what the GI could be. After defending her dissertation in 2018 and setting out from Waterloo, she has returned to her old stomping grounds for the next stage of her career as the GI’s Research Communications Officer.
Pallavi Sodhi, Research Intern for the Council for Responsible Innovation and Technology (CRIT) and Dr. Jason Lajoie, Research Associate for CRIT, gave a guest lecture about inclusive board game design for students at Branksome Hall in Toronto.
Do our self-perceptions influence our preferences when designing avatars in the games we play? GI members Mitchell Loewen and Dr. Lennart E. Nacke, with Dr. Christopher Burris of St. Jerome’s University, co-authored a paper about the psychology of preferences toward game avatar styles.
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the research landscape. In this series, we explore how our community is navigating their daily lives and innovating to adapt their research and collaboration techniques.