People profiles

Dr. Shi Cao studies human factors and ergonomics using both experiment and computational simulation methods.

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.

Professor DiCiccio helped found the Institute for Computer Research (ICR).

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.

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.

Professor Fue-Sang Lien has over 20 years of research experience in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Turbulance Modelling.

Ian Milligan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Waterloo. He is also a member of the Tri-University Graduate Program in History (which covers the University of Waterloo, University of Guelph, and Wilfrid Laurier University).

Jennifer Roberts-Smith is Principal Investigator of The Stratford Festival Online: Games and Virtual Learning Environments for Education and Audience Engagement, a project funded by the Ontario Early Researcher Award program.

Dr. Gerald Voorhees studies games and new media as sites for the construction and contestation of identity and culture. He is also interested in public discourse pertaining to games and new media, as well as rhetorics of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality in mediated public discourse.

Jennifer Whitson is the Research Advisor for Execution Labs, an accelerator and investment platform for indie game studios, as well as an affiliated faculty member with the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre  (TAG) at Concordia University.

​Deltcho Valtchanov is a postdoctoral research fellow with a background in virtual reality, human visual perception, and cognitive and behavioural neuroscience. His past research has focused on how low level visual information influences emotional responses to, and aesthetics of, visual scenes.

Cong is a fourth year Computer Science student at the University of Waterloo with double minors in Psychology and Entrepreneurship. He has co-founded, and serves as advisor on several startup ventures in the KW region.

Judy Ehrentraut is a Ph.D. student at the University of Waterloo, specializing in new media, posthumanism, and games studies. Her research includes agency and identity in digital culture, reading the digitized body, cyborgism, simulated realities, techno-futurism, and utopian/dystopian themes in games and literature. Her current work examines how personal computing devices such as mobile phones and other wearable technologies are changing how we view and redefine our bodies within real and virtual spaces.

Brief Bio

Adam Bradley, BA (McMaster) MA (Waterloo), is a PhD student interested in the intersections between technology and traditional literary studies. His MA research project, titled "Data Visualization and the Avant-Garde Aesthetic" was a digital humanities project completed in conjunction with the English department's Digital Media Lab and the Computer Science department's Touchlab.

Rob Parker (MA, Wilfrid Laurier & BA, MA, Waterloo) is a research associate and HASTAC scholar (2013-2014), a contributing editor for First Person Scholar, and has been actively involved with the Games Institute since 2012.

Amber O’Brien is pursuing a Masters in Literary Studies. Her main area of interest is examining how narratives in science fiction and fantasy texts work to challenge and alter gender ideologies in Western societies.

​Pascaline Lorentz has her PhD in Sociology and is a Postdoctoral Researcher working on online gaming at the Institute for Research on Children, Youth and Family at Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Republic.
Granted with an ENDEAVOUR Research Fellowship in 2011 she undertook a study documenting the social environment of an intense practice of virtual world attachments in Australia. 

Wan Hong Situ is the CTO of Invuze. He is responsible for developing the platform and leading the implementation of the applications. He's currently a fourth year Honours Computer Science student at the University of Waterloo. Wan Hong Situ has extensive experienced in web and mobile development utilizing multiple frameworks.

Kaitlin is an MA student with strong interests in public relations, communication strategies, and event planning. Kaitlin is currently the Communications and Project Coordinator for the GI.

Julia Brich is a Ph.D. student from Ulm University, Germany. In her work, she focuses on the effects that various game mechanics like highscore systems, achievements, or non-player character design have on player motivation. The goal of her thesis is to facilitate motivation-adaptive games that can change their characteristics during run time to present a continually motivating experience to players. Her work is largely interdisciplinary with aspects from both psychology research and applied 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.

Amberly H. West, (BA and MA University of Waterloo) researches games for health. Her secondary research areas include adaptations, rhetoric, and new media studies. Under the supervision of Dr. Neil Randall and Dr. Mark Hancock, she and Rebecca Langer (Computer Science) have been working on a multi-disciplinary research project for which the team researched, designed, and developed a prototype of a game that teaches children to identify and manage food allergies.

Alex Fleck is a Masters student in the XDM stream interested in the application of new media (games) criticism to other forms. In particular, he is interested in the transposition of literary works into other media.

Kayla received her Undergraduate Degree from the University of Waterloo studying Arts and Business. From past co-op experiences, Kayla has worked in various industries at companies such as Art in Tanzania, MappedIn, Humber College and CIBC.

Mike is a Masters student in the Computer Science program at the University of Waterloo. Before coming to Canada, he studied game development and augmented reality in Austria and Medicine in Germany. He is also a co-founder of a Berlin-based start-up company which is active in the 3D printing sphere.

Shawn DeSouza-Coelho is a Masters student in the Experimental Digital Media program at the University of Waterloo’s Critical Media Lab.

Supervisor: Neil Randall

Will is a PhD student who studies how modern video games represent Victorian London differently than modern novels about the era. Specifically, he is interested in investigating historical games' abilities to productively recreate elements of past societies. 

Brian graduated in Fine Art from the National College of Art and Design Dublin in 2000 where his interests included video and sound installation. He received an M.Phil in Music and Media Technologies from Trinity College Dublin in 2004 focusing on audio-visual composition.

Andrew is an emerging digital media designer. His primary focuses in digital design revolve around photography and videography. Andrew also has experience in the Adobe suites including; Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom. He also has taken an interest in game development and game design, having played many games in his past time. His current focus is to expand his digital media portfolio and create inspirational work that will motivate those around him. His work can be viewed on Facebook at Jintoki Media.

Erica is a filmmaker and designer. She has just completed  a film called “John Orpheus is Dead” which is part of a multidisciplinary collaboration that includes an album, concerts, music videos and even a jewellery line called Gada Chainz. 

Joseph is a previous game tester for: Dota2 (Valve), Maplestory (Nexon), Blade&Soul (Ncsoft) and GunZ : The Duel(Mailet). He has immense interests in UX and UI interfaces. With his background in Digital Arts Communication (DAC), he seeks to explore the different dimensions of wireframes and paper prototypes that can be useful in game designs.

Joseph is deeply involved with the Duke of Edinburgh program (Gold Status), and enjoys shooting digital cinematography on his free time.

Chantel Pilon was a co-op student for The Games Institute from September - December 2013. During her term she created many of the visual and digital promotional materials for the Games Institute. She is a fifth-year student enrolled in Honours Recreation and Business. In addition to her academics, Chantel is a member of the varsity track and field team at the University of Waterloo specializing in the pentathlon and 4X400m relay. The pentathlon is a contest consisting of five events: 60m hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and the 800m.

Ruby was working at the GI as the Project Coordinator for her Fall 2015 co-op term. Now entering into her third year of Honours Arts and Business at the University of Waterloo, she is pursuing a major in Psychology with minors in Human Resources Management and Digital Arts Communication.

Kirk W. Goodlet received his PhD in History at the University of Waterloo and was a research associate at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies. He has worked and conducted research in archives across Canada, the Netherlands, and Belgium. In addition, Kirk is also the co-founder and writer for clioscurrent.com, a website dedicated to exploring current affairs with historical perspective.

Anda is currently studying Global Business and Digital Arts at the University of Waterloo. With more than four years experience as a digital freelance artist, Anda is proficient in all applications within the Adobe Suite. Anda seeks to find ways to intersect their background in games, animation, and user experience design.

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

Diane Watson is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. Her focus is on "Gamification", in particular, how positive behaviours can be encouraged through games.

​Rina R. Wehbe is currently working on her Ph.D. Her research focuses on understanding difficulty and learning in games and productivity applications. Currently, she is co-supervised by Dr. Lennart Nacke and Dr. Edward Lank of the University of Waterloo, and Dr. Stephen Fairclough of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). They are all a part of HCI Games Labs. 

Kirsten Robinson is a systems design engineer and designer. She worked on Governor General Award winning architect Phillip Beesley’s Hylozoic Soil team to create responsive architectures that were shown across Canada and at the Venice Biennial.

Justin Carpenter BA (University of Calgary) MA (University of Leeds) is a PhD student interested in Aesthetics, Critical Game Studies, Indigenous Literature, and Multimodality. More specifically, he hopes to explore indigenous video games (such as Never Alone) and how oral narratives function in these games, particularly how music and spoken word interact with visual and ludic elements in a game. He is also a copy editor for First Person Scholar.

Jay is an undergraduate student in his third year of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He is passionate about game design and creation, and is working at the Games Institute as a developer during the Summer 2015 co-op term.

Elise Vist, BA and MA (English, Carleton University), is a Ph.D. student currently studying the intersections of feminism and game studies. Thanks to her experiences with locative narratives and tabletop game design, she has become interested in low-tech games and enjoys encouraging people to make "crap games". As a co-founder of the Games Institute Janes (GI Janes), Elise is currently working towards bringing people who identify as women together to make, play, and talk about games.

Saba is in her third year of Health Studies, with a minor in Gerontology.

She has worked as a research assistant on various projects started in The Games Institute. Her interests revolve around projects that relate to patient satisfaction, especially the elderly.

Lauren Burr is a PhD candidate in the English Department at the University of Waterloo studying locative media, augmented/alternate/hybrid realities, and pervasive games. Lauren’s recent collaborative projects include Bonfire of the Humanities, an alternate reality game designed for Congress 2012; Cytopath, an augmented reality necromedia game set in downtown Kitchener; and House of Lexia, a locative hypertext remediation of Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves.

Melissa Stocco has joined The Games Institute as a research assistant. She is a 4th year undergraduate student in the Arts and Business program with a major in Sociology and minor in Digital Arts Communication. Melissa became interested in studying games after taking Jennifer Whitson's course Gamers and Games, and Lennart Nacke's course Introduction to Game Design.

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).

Emma Vossen is a PhD candidate currently writing a dissertation examining how accessible games and gaming/gamer culture is to women. Her research is specifically examining how comfortable women feel playing, talking and writing about games in both physical and virtual spaces and how this determines who enters and becomes a part of gamer culture.

Shawn Dorey is a student in the Masters of Arts - Experimental Digital Media program inside of U Waterloo's English department. Coming from the University of New Brunswick, they graduated with a First Class designation for their Honours Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts and Cultures.

​Leila received her M.Sc. degree in Software Engineering from the University of Alberta. She joined the Collaborative Systems Lab in 2013 as a research assistant.

Mitchell Loewen is a 4th year Knowledge Integration and Psychology Joint Honours student with a Collaborative Design Specialization at the University of Waterloo. Under the supervision of Dr. Lennart Nacke and Dr. Chris Burris, Mitchell is currently working on his undergraduate Psychology thesis investigating the relationship between the self and avatar creation norms in video games. Mitchell is also very passionate about game design, and is currently working with some fellow undergraduate students to publish a game they designed during Dr. Nacke’s Introduction to Game Design course.

Christian is an award winning writer from Toronto. He is interested in eSports and the narrative negotiations that take place between player and game. Christian is currently studying in the Experimental Digital Media stream.

George Ross, BA (Hons.) (Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Carleton University) and MA (Applied Language Studies, Carleton University) specializes in simulations, organizational rhetoric, and narrative modeling.

Dr. Nacke's work is located within the information and communication technologies, design, psychology and human-computer interaction space, but also ties closely into the areas of human health and wellness. He uses biotechnology (namely, physiological sensors) and much of his research is located in the field of user research, where he is focused on evaluating physiological signals elicited by humans when playing games.

Lesley Northam is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science, in the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL). She studies film language, cinematography, stereoscopic 3D and HFR. She is also interested in non-photorealistic rendering.

Dr. Rita Orji is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Games Institute, working with Dr. Lennart Nacke and Dr. Chrysanne Di Marco. Rita’s research at the Games Institute focuses on creating persuasive games aiming to help adolescents avoid various interconnected risky health behaviours (e.g., risky sex; drugs and alcohol use).

Gustavo is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo under supervision of Dr. Lennart Nacke and Dr. Daniel Vogel. His main interests include gamification and games for health and learning. His research focus on the design of gameful applications.

John Harris is a PhD student in Computer Science (BAsc. Mechatronics Engineering, UWaterloo; MSc Computer Science, UCalgary). His research focuses on the design and development of Strong Asymmetry in games as a means of promoting inclusiveness and getting more kinds of people playing together.

Dr. Adrian Reetz is a post-doctoral research fellow with a background in Human-computer Interaction. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Saskatchewan where he worked under the supervision of Dr. Carl Gutwin.

Lisa Tran was the Communications and Research co-op student for the Fall 2014 term. She has many titles to her role including Project Manager Assistant as well as Facilities Manager.

Ian is a undergraduate student in his final year of Computer Engineering. As both a gamer and a filmmaker, Ian enjoys figuring out how each discipline can draw from the other to produce better media.

Brief Bio

​Alvaro Uribe holds has a degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Mil. Nueva Granada University, Bogotá, Colombia and a Master's and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Universidade Estudal de Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.

Jonathan Rodriguez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science.

Kevin Barton received his PhD in Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience from the University of Waterloo. His doctoral research examined how people effectively navigate the world around them, using techniques drawn from mathematics, psychophysiology, virtual reality, and computational neuroscience.

Michael Hancock is a PhD candidate in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. His dissertation is on the history of textual representation in videogames, a study which ranges from videogame instruction manuals to the 1989 Amiga game It Came From the Desert.