Alumni profiles

Kasandra Arthur, HBA (Lakehead University) and MA (Lakehead University), both with a specialization in Women's Studies. Kasandra studied young adult literature, particularly the processes in which these texts are adapted to film.

Lukas Schabler (BA Graz University of Technology) was a Computer Science Master's student at the Technical University of Graz who is interested in Interactive Systems and Data Science. He joined the summer research program to expand his knowledge of game design.

Alberto was a Ph.D. student at the Open University Of Catalonia, Spain, under the supervision of Dr. Joan Arnedo and Dr. Carina González, and was a visiting researcher at the HCI Games Group. He holds a M.Sc in education and teacher training from the University of La Rioja and he is a computer engineer from the University of La Laguna. His main interests include gamification design in the field of learning environments, as well as healthcare and wellness. His thesis is titled "A framework for agile design of gamification services".

Marim joined the Games institute as UX designer and research assistant. She recently completed her Masters in Digital Experience Innovation program at the University of Waterloo. With her skills in design and background in science, she is passionate about understanding people’s behaviour then crafting products and experiences that delight and empower them. She worked under the supervision of Dr. Nacke on various projects where she helped create intuitive solutions to complex problems. Her area of interest is in human centric design, interaction and motion design.

Through an activity theory approach, Sultan's focus was to understand urban search & rescue teams' activity and training to design game mechanics and interfaces in simulation games. The aim of this simulation game was to improve urban search & rescue teams' sensemaking and planning skills. Sultan was involved in multiple research areas of HCI including: mixed reality games, serious games, augmented and virtual reality games, gesture based interaction games, and idle games.

Elise Vist, BA and MA (English, Carleton University), is a Ph.D. graduate who studied fans, immersion, and queerness. Her research focused on hockey fans and Real Person Fanfiction, but she has also written about immersion and queerness in games, including dys4ia, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Lord of the Rings: Online, and the worldwide scavenger hunt GISHWHES. She is also passionate about creative and playful game design, running workshops using University of Alberta's Cobble Cards. As a co-founder of the Games Institute Janes (GI Janes), Elise encouraged women and non-binary people to find joy in gaming. 

Natalee was a Master's student in the English Language and Literature Department at the University of Waterloo.

Andrew Cen was a systems design engineering (SYDE) student under the SWaGUR program. Andrew graduated with a BA in Speech Communication and minor in Digital Arts Communication. He researches with Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Games Group because of his passion for game design and interest in Games User Research. He is currently researching accessibility and novel input methods in virtual reality. On his spare time, Andrew is a digital designer and his primary practice revolves around photography and videography.

Emma Vossen received her PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Waterloo in 2018. She then went on two complete two concurrent postdoctoral research fellowships at York University and the University of British Columbia. She is the co-author and co-editor of the anthology Feminism in Play (Palgrave 2018) and the upcoming Game Studies Historiographies (Punctum 2022). Her dissertation examines the accessibility of games, gamer identity, and games culture. Emma is the former commentaries editor, podcast host, and editor-in-chief of middle state games studies publication First Person Scholar (FPS).

After several years of teaching and researching at other institutions, Vossen has returned to Waterloo and is now the Research Communications Officer at the GI.

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.

Brandon Ralph (BSc and MA in Psychology) was a PhD candidate in the Cognitive Neuroscience division of the Psychology Department at the University of Waterloo. His primary areas of expertise are visual processing and attention.

Born in Tehran-Iran, as a painter and digital artist, Shadi started painting professionally in 2004. Earlier on, she used to take photos, manipulate them using computer and paint them on the canvas. Later in her career, she stopped painting on canvas and stopped using human figures in her paintings and instead, started to work with objects. She likes to show women in her digital and analog artworks to highlight the problems they are confronted with in society.