Blog

A Panel Discussion on Games and Education

Several GI faculty members were brought together on November 22^nd to discuss the intersection between education and games in a panel moderated by Research Communications Officer Dr. Emma Vosssen.

Drs. Kristina Llewellyn (Social Development Studies), Jennifer Whitson (Sociology and Legal Studies), and Steve Wilcox (University of Wilfrid Laurier, GI and English Language and Literature Alum) explored topics such as:

A Spotlight on Games Institute Executive Director, Dr. Neil Randall

An interview with Dr. Kristina R. Llewellyn about the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation project

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.

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.

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. 

For the past few years, Dr. Oliver Schneider has been working hard to build a network of Hapticians across Canada—CanHaptics. Or, as it’s described on the CanHaptics website, “we make technology more human by making it physical – pushing out from the screen to be graspable, holdable, and engage with all of your senses – and do so by putting people, not technology, first”. The Covid-19 pandemic put haptic technology research between a rock and a hard place; how does one study human interaction with technology, remotely?

Tina Chan, M.Sc. candidate in Applied Health Sciences has been speaking with the media recently as her work on mental health support and mental health gameful design gains traction.