Blog

The Games Institute (GI) is pleased to announce the recipients of its first-ever seed grant funding competition. In total, the GI Seed Program will support eight interdisciplinary initiatives for a total of $110,000 over the next year. The competition promoted interdisciplinary collaborations in teams of researchers spanning many different disciplines and research areas.

The seed grant recipients will combine their varied expertise to tackle real-world problems facing indigenous communities, health care workers, children with speech difficulties, mothers facing homelessness, citizen scientists, and VR, XR and social media consumers.

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. 

Each year many GI faculty and student members present at the Canadian Game Studies Association conference, better known as CGSA.

GI faculty member Gerald Voorhees is currently CGSA president and organized this year’s conference with the assistance of the CGSA executive.

This year nine GI members and Alumni presented a wide array of research ranging from the games industry and education to the depiction of animals in games.

GI members also participated as reviewers, panel moderators, and adjudicators for CGSA’s best paper competition.