Browse faculty research
*external members
Neil Randall
Associate Professor, English Language and Literature
Executive Director of The Games Institute
In addition to directing The Games Institute, Neil Randall has also earned large grants for The Interactive and Multi-Modal Research Syndicate (IMMERSe) and the Waterloo Game Analysis and Monitoring Environment (WatGAME). He is the Faculty Advisor to the Games Institute's First Person Scholar.
Mark Hancock
Associate Director, The Games Institute; Associate Professor, Management Sciences
Mark Hancock is the Associate Director of the Games Institute. He is also an associate professor in the Department of Management Sciences in the Faculty of Engineering, where he directs the Touchlab.
Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher
Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Professor Mehlenbacher is an Ontario Early Researcher Award holder who specializes in science communication, citizen science, and expertise in multidisciplinary teams.
Aynur Kadir
Assistant Professor in Digital Media at the Department of Communication Arts
Dr. Aynur Kadir’s research focuses on practices and theories of design and the study of interactive multimedia in the humanities, ethnographic practices, and museum curation.
Ben Feng
Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
Dr. Ben Feng’s research interests include mathematical modelling of complex real-life systems, computer experiment design and analysis, and Monte Carlo simulations.
Dr. Feng is particularly interested in the intersections of these fields such as experiment designs, statistical analysis of computer simulations, efficient simulation procedures for risk management, etc. While with a methodological emphasis, Dr. Feng is very keen on conducting research that can make an impact in practical applications.
Ben Thompson
Associate Professor, Optometry and Vison Science
Ben’s background is in visual neuroscience and his research interests relate to the development and plasticity of human visual brain areas.
Beth Coleman
Associate Professor, English Language and Literature
Beth Coleman is co-director of the Critical Media Lab at the University of Waterloo, and participates in the Rhetoric & Professional Writing major as well as the Master of Arts in Experimental Digital Media.
Brad Mehlenbacher
Associate Professor, English Language & Literature
Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communication in the Department of English Language & Literature at the University of Waterloo.
Brianna Wiens
Lecturer
Brianna Wiens is a Lecturer in Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, Co-Convener of the Q Collaborative, and a Doctoral Candidate in the joint program in Communication and Culture at York University with Ryerson University. Her research explores and applies intersectional feminist philosophy and practice as a form of techné to consider potentials of queer and feminist technologies for digital activisms.
Chrysanne Di Marco
Associate Professor, Artificial Intelligence Group (David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science) Cross Appointment, English Language and Literature *Retired*
Chrysanne Di Marco has been a member of the Artificial Intelligence Group since 1990. She is also project leader of the HealthDoc project, which works to develop natural language generation systems for producing multimedia health information tailored to medical conditions and patient characteristics.
Colin Ellard
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Colin Ellard is a psychologist researching neuroscience. His interests include how the organization and appearance of natural and built spaces affects movement, wayfinding, emotion, and physiology. He directs the Urban Realities Lab at the University of Waterloo.
Craig Hardiman
Associate Professor, Classical Studies
"My work primarily focuses on the domestic art of the Hellenistic period (323-31 BCE) – the kinds of sculptures, paintings and mosaics people would have had in their homes. I am also interested in how these people understood their art and so have an interest in ancient aesthetic theory. More broadly I work on the art, especially the sculpture, and the culture of the Hellenistic period. I am also very interested in the intersections of ancient art, video games and pedagogy."
- Craig
Craig S. Kaplan
Associate Professor, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Professor Kaplan studies the application of computer graphics in art, illustration, ornamentation, and design. This research area is rooted in computer graphics, but involves forays into art (to study historical sources) classical and computational geometry (to develop mathematical and computational models of ornament), and computer-aided design and manufacturing.
Ed Lank
Associate Professor, Cheriton School of Computer Science
Ed Lank is an associate professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. His research is in the area of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
Edith Law
Assistant Professor, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Edith Law is an Assistant Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on interaction techniques and incentive mechanisms for volunteer-based human computation systems, and how these systems can address problems in Science and Public Health. She is also part of the Human Computer Interaction Lab.
Fue-Sang Lien
Professor, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering
Professor Fue-Sang Lien has over 20 years of research experience in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Turbulance Modelling.
Gerald Voorhees
Associate Professor, Drama and Speech Communication
Gerald Voorhees is an Associate Professor in the Department Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo.
Ian Milligan
Associate Professor, Department of History
Ian Milligan is a digital and Canadian historian. He’s currently exploring how historians can fruitfully use web archives and other large digital repositories.
Jane Tingley
Assistant Professor, Fine Arts
Jane Tingley is an Assistant Professor in Hybrid Media in the Department of Fine Arts and the Stratford campus at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Her research combines traditional studio practice with new media tools, spanning responsive/interactive installation, performative robotics, and the creation of a gestural game.
Jason Hawreliak*
Assistant Professor, Game Studies, Brock University
Jason Hawreliak received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Waterloo. His research examines rhetorics of heroism and immortality in videogames. Other research interests include multimodal rhetoric and the psychological function of digital media.
Jennifer Boger
Assistant Professor, Systems Design Engineering
Jennifer employs an interdisciplinary, user-centric approach to create internationally renowned technologies that provide multifaceted support of aging, including aspects such as citizenship, leisure, and personhood.
Jennifer Roberts-Smith
Associate Professor, Drama and Speech Communication
Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith's transdisciplinary, design-based work in performance and digital media focuses on history, education, and social justice. She is currently a co-director of the qCollaborative (the critical feminist design research lab housed in Games Institute) and leads the SSHRC-funded Theatre for Relationality and Design for Peace projects. She is also creative director and virtual reality cluster lead for the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation (DOHR) project. Her recent publications have focused on methods for design research that deepen interdisciplinary understanding and take a relational approach to design.
Jennifer Whitson
Associate Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies
Jennifer R. Whitson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology & Legal Studies and at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, both at the University of Waterloo. She is involved with University of Waterloo’s Games Institute and the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute, and was an associate editor of Surveillance and Society. She has published in edited collections such as The Gameful World, published by MIT Press, as well as the journals First Monday, Economy & Society, FibreCulture, Games & Culture and New Media and Society.
You can find more of her work at IndieInterfaces.com and jenniferwhitson.com.
Jesse Hoey
Associate Professor, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Dr. Jesse Hoey is an associate professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He is also an adjunct scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute in Toronto, Canada, where he is co-leader of the AI and Robotics Research Team. Dr. Hoey received the B.Sc. degree (1992) in physics from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, the M.Sc. degree (1995) in physics and the Ph.D degree (2004) in computer science from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. From 2004-2010, he was an assistant professor in the School of Computing at the University of Dundee, Scotland. In 2014-2015 he was a visiting professor at the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en automatique (INRIA) in Sophia-Antipolis, France.
Jim Wallace
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health and Health Systems
Jim Wallace is an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health and Health Systems at University of Waterloo. His research focuses on interaction techniques for computing systems that involve multiple devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and large interactive wall displays, and how these systems can address problems in Public Health.
Kaylena Ehgoetz Martens
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology
Dr. Ehgoetz Martens is an Assistant Professor for the Kinesiology Department, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on using virtual reality to dissect how cognition and emotion contribute to movement in health and disease.
Ken Hirschkop
Professor, English Language and Literature
Ken Hirschkop is currently a part of the Games and Narrative Reading Group at the Games Institute. With Dr. Hirschkop's guidance, graduate students who join the reading group explore how the fields of Narrative Theory and Game Studies intersect and inform one another.
Kevin Harrigan
Associate Professor, Drama and Speech Communication
Kevin Harrigan is a member of the University of Waterloo's Canadian Centre for Arts and Technology (CCAT). He teaches courses in multimedia and computer-game design in the Digital Arts Communication (DAC) program, and has been a technical expert witness in legal cases regarding Electronic Gaming Machines (EGMs).
Kristina Llewellyn
Associate Professor, Social Development Studies
Kristina R. Llewellyn is an Associate Professor of Social Development Studies and affiliated faculty with the Department of History. Her primary research area is oral history and education, which extends to the role of games and virtual reality in teaching and learning history.
Lai-Tze Fan
Assistant Professor, English Language and Literature
Lai-Tze Fan is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Digital Media at the University of Waterloo, working in the Department of English and the Critical Media Lab. Fan serves as Associate Editor and the Director of Communications of electronic book review, as well as Co-Editor of The Digital Review and Steering Committee Member of MediArXiv: The Open Archive for Media, Film, & Communication Studies. Her research on digital storytelling, media materiality and infrastructure, and the critical digital humanities has been published in Mosaic, Convergence, Digital Studies, Media Theory, and elsewhere. Fan is co-editor of the collection Post-Digital: Critical Debates in electronic book review (Bloomsbury Academic 2020).
Leah Zhang-Kennedy
Lecturer, User Experience Research and Design
Leah teaches User Experience Design and Innovation at the University of Waterloo’s Stratford Campus. She joined Waterloo from an interdisciplinary background, bridging design and research from computer science, human-computer interaction, and graphic design. She has four years of industry experience working as a designer.
Lennart Nacke
Associate Director Graduate Studies, Stratford | Associate Professor, Stratford / Drama and Speech Communication / The Games Institute
Dr. Lennart Nacke is an Associate Professor, the Associate Director Graduate Studies for Stratford campus, and the Director of the HCI Games Group at the University of Waterloo’s Games Institute. Professor Nacke teaches User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction, and Game Design at the University of Waterloo.
Michael Barnett-Cowan
Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology
Dr. Michael Barnett-Cowan is an Associate Professor for the Kinesiology Department, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, at the University of Waterloo.
Morgan McGuire
Adjunct Professor
Morgan's work is on creating computer algorithms, systems, and hardware that enable new experiences through perceptually-driven rendering, high throughput, and cloud computing.
Morgan is the research Director of New Experiences at NVIDIA and an adjunct professor in the University of Waterloo Cheriton School of Computer Science.
https://casual-effects.com/morgan/
Ning Jiang
Assistant Professor, Systems Design Engineering
In the research community, there has been a new direction of research on dexterous myoelectric control mimicking the neuromuscular system by extracting nature control information from surface EMG with advanced algorithm, and Ning Jiang is one of the world leading experts in this exciting direction.
Oliver Schneider
Assistant Professor, Department of Management Sciences
Dr. Oliver Schneider is an Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Management Sciences. His research interests include human-computer interaction, haptics, and creativity-support systems.
Oliver is the recipient of the Post-doctoral Fellowship, Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship and Canada Graduate Scholarship - Master's. He typically attends/publishes at CHI, UIST, and haptics conferences such as Haptics Symposium, World Haptics and EuroHaptics.
Randy Harris
Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Randy Allen Harris is a rhetorician with the University of Waterloo’s Department of English Language and Literature. His interests include Computational Rhetoric, Cognitive Science, Linguistics, and Stylistics. His books include The Linguistic Wars, Rhetoric and Incommensurability, and Voice Interaction Design. He is the director of RhetFig, a rhetorical-figure research group that developed GoFigure, a citizen-science game for harvesting rhetorical figures from any and all genres, registers, and discourses.
Shi Cao
Associate Professor, Systems Design Engineering
Shi Cao is pronounced like SHER TSAO. Dr. Cao’s major research area is human factors engineering. His research projects include human performance and workload modeling, human-machine system reliability, and the applications of virtual and augmented reality.
Stacey Scott
Assistant Professor, Systems Design Engineering Cross Appointment, English Language and Literature
Stacey’s research and teaching interests are human-computer interaction and computer-supported collaboration.
Susan Elliott
Professor, Geography and Environmental Management
Susan is a medical geographer with specific interests in global environmental health. She is an Adjunct Professor with the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, a partner in much of the global water and sanitation research that she does. She is also a research lead for the AllerGen national centr
Umair Shah
Teaching Assistant, Lecturer, Management Sciences
Muhammad Umair Shah is a faculty member in the Department of Management Sciences, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He pursues research in human-computer interaction, application of stakeholder theory in technology realm, and ethics of UX design.
He investigates the impacts of various emotional and sensory factors on usage patterns of multiplayer online battle arena games. He is also interested in learning about the intentions that alter usage behaviour and advertising value of mobile video games.
