University of Waterloo researchers have been awarded over $4.4 million in funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) this month.
Multiple Games Institute faculty members received SSHRC Insight funding to support their research totalling nearly a million dollars!
Games Institute faculty member Ben Thompson (School of Optometry and Vision Science) was recently named a 2022 University Research Chair. Dr Thompson is the CEO and Scientific Director of the Center for Eye and Vision Research, and his research focuses on human brain plasticity and visual cortex particularly in promoting plasticity to improve outcomes for patients with brain-based visual disorders.
Games Institute PhD student and Research Communications Writer Sid Heeg (Environment) delivered a guest talk to the UW Staff Association about COVID-19 misinformation on May 12th, 2022.
Heeg’s talk Malicious Messaging: How Misinformation Operates Online covered how misinformation forms, how it differs from disinformation and how it appears online using examples from real COVID-19 misinformation that has been spread on social media.
They argued that the “COVID-19 Pandemic has made it clear that we are living in a time of rapid misinformation and distrust in public and government institutions.
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.
On April 29th, PhD student Aleksander Franiczek (English Language and Literature) presented his research as part of the English Department’s PRES (Projects and Research by English Students) Lecture series, followed by a response by PhD candidate Alexander Fleck (English Language and Literature).
On May 2nd GI Research Communications Officer Dr. Emma Vossen was a panellist at the webinar “Tech-Facilitated Violence & Abuse: Implications for People, Democracy, & Digital Spaces.”
GI members Dr. Emma Vossen and Dr. Kishonna Gray were interviewed about harassment and abuse in games and games culture for the “Digital Public Interest Collective Podcast.”
Dr. Lennart Nacke (Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business) has started a new podcast titled “The Games User Research Podcast” with co-hosts Dr. Anders Drachen (University of South Denmark) and Dr. Pejaman Mirza-Babaei (Ontario Tech University).
Games Institute publication First Person Scholar (FPS) published a new special issue that focused on the voices and experiences of queer and trans people of colour on April 7th.
GI faculty members, Drs. Lai-Tze Fan (Sociology and Legal Studies), Kishonna Grey (University of Kentucky), and Aynur Kadir (University of British Columbia) have recently published “How to Design Games that Promote Racial Equality” in Electronic Book Review.