Industrial & Academic Advisory Board

I remember another place. It was dark, but there were candles, and people telling me that I needed to write faster. (Actually, I've got one of those standard wacky author resumes - MIS/Research director for an outplacement firm, paper and pencil game designer at White Wolf Game Studios, grad student, GMAT tutor, QA tester, laboratory assistant and experimental subject. It's pretty much standard operating procedure if you ever want to get published. Flee from me lest I try to make you read something I've written. And yes, I'm another one of those pesky relocated Yankees. We're everywhere.)

Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories across texts, comics, games and other media. He completed his Ph.D. in Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that, he received a B.A. and M.A. in Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He chaired Game Art & Design and Interactive Media Design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and the Art Institute Online and has taught and researched at several universities. He consults for a variety of companies, institutions and organizations and was a Senior Project Manager in the New Media Division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston. He was also a Project Manager in Learning Services at Sapient, and before that he produced interactive media at HumanCode. He was recently the Chair of the Sandbox Symposium, an ACM SIGGRAPH conference on video games and serves on the IGDA Education SIG, the ACTlab Steering Committee, and many review boards and jury panels. He founded the Applied Media & Simulation Games Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is Editor of the nascent ETC Press and has written a forthcoming book on narratives across media and is writing another on cross-media communication.

Dave Luehmann is a general manager within Microsoft Game Studios. A 17-year gaming industry veteran, Luehmann joined Microsoft Corp. in 1999 as part of a developer acquisition. His current role includes overseeing FASA Studio®, Forza Studio and Aces Studio, as well as the publishing services and technology development organizations. Before joining Microsoft, Luehmann held positions with FASA Interactive, Trilobyte, Playmates Toys Inc., Extreme Entertainment and Virgin Interactive, where he worked on a wide variety of platforms and titles. He fills his personal time with family and a love of consumer gadgets and fast cars as well as flying, skiing and, of course, online gaming.

John got his start with computers earning money to pay for his Philosophy degree at Northeastern University. He was then hired by Digital Equipment Corporation to troubleshoot VAX/VMS and then work on the VMS and DEC OSF/1 operating systems as a Principal engineer. John then went to at Oracle as Technical Director and then to Microsoft to lead the Microsoft SQL Server enterprise effort including launching [ http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ ]Terraserver as part of Micrsosoft’s Scalability Day. After a two and half year break where John traveled in Italy, India and Thailand, John returned to Microsoft Research to work with Academic Institutions in the Northeast of the US and India. John was instrumental in persuading Microsoft Research to build a lab in Bangalore, India. He then went on to address the problem of Computer Science (CS) enrollment decline by promoting CS curriculum enhancement including using gaming themes and technologies. John produces The MSR gaming kit., has been running the MSR initiative on gaming in CS including the RFP and John works with Kent Foster on the annual Academic Days with Gaming and the related Call for papers. John has presented internationally (US, Holland, Mexico, Chile and China) for the last few years on the potential of gaming to enhance CS and on The Ethics of Game Design. John’s focus now includes games for learning and hopes to collaborate with others on developing a game to help young kids with algebra and geometry and older kids with the GRE.

As CEO, Mary Margaret leads the recruitment strategies and new business endeavors for Mary-Margaret.com. She brings to the role 14 years of experience in recruiting and 6 years of experience in video game development. Prior to moving to recruiting in 1996, Mary Margaret was Manager of Studio Services for The 3DO Company managing the milestones and development process of all projects in production and the hiring of over 200 employees. Previously, she was at Origin Systems where she created the company’s Human Resources department and contributed to titles in development as a Design Manager. Mary Margaret is a regular speaker at international trade shows and has authored numerous articles. She was a contributing author to Ernest Adams' popular book, Break Into The Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games. A founding member of the IGDA, Mary Margaret holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Christian University and an M.B.A. from Sacred Heart University.

Ernest Adams has been in the game industry since 1989, and has worked as a game design consultant, lead game designer, audio/video producer, and software engineer. Adams graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Philosophy in the early 1980s. For the next seven years he worked as a software engineer in the electronics industry. In 1989 he left computer-aided design to develop games, joining Interactive Productions (later, p.f. Magic). There he created the PC-side client for an early America On-line game, RabbitJack's Casino. He also did the programming for a multiplayer party game called Third Degree for the short-lived CD-I player. Adams became a game designer shortly after his move to Electronic Arts in 1992. He designed the first ever CD-ROM edition of John Madden Football, for the 3DO machine. With the experience gained on that project, Adams was the audio/video producer for the Madden series for the next five years. Under his guidance Electronic Arts perfected the technique of assembling sentences from audio snippets to produce seamless play-by-play commentary. During this period at Electronic Arts Adams also helped to produce the Computer Game Developers Conference (now the GDC), and founded the International Game Developers' Association, the first international professional society for game developers. He served as President and Chairman of the Board of the IGDA for two and a half years. In 1999 Adams moved to Great Britain to become a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions, a subsidiary of EA. There he worked on two projects, Genesis: The Hand of God and Dungeon Keeper 3. Both were terminated when the company cut back its PC development. In 2000 Adams left Bullfrog to become a game design and development consultant, joining the International Hobo group. Among his clients have been UbiSoft, THQ, and Glu Mobile. Adams lectures and write extensively on game design, including a monthly on-line column called The Designer's Notebook. He has also written two books: "Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design," and "Break Into the Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games."

Henry Jenkins III, the DeFlorz Professor of Humanities and Director of MIT Comparative Media Studies, has spent his career studying media and the way people incorporate it into their lives. He is the principle investigator for the MIT-Microsoft Games-to-Teach project, which is examining the educational potential of computer and video games. He is one of the founders and directors of The Education Arcade. He writes two monthly columns The Digital Renaissance, for Technology Review Online and "Applied Game Theory" for Computer Games magazine. He testified in 1999 before the U.S. Senate during the hearings on media violence that followed the Littleton, Colorado shootings, testified before the Federal Communications Commission about media literacy, and spoke to the governor's board of the World Economic Forum about intellectual property law. His books include Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture (co-edited with Tara McPherson and Jane Shattuc, 2003), From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games (co-editor with Justine Cassell, 1998), The Children's Cultural Reader (editor, 1998), Science Fiction Audiences: Doctor Who, Star Trek and Their Followers (with John Tullock, 1995), Classical Hollywood Comedy (co-editor with Kristine Brunovska Karnick, 1994), Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992), What Made Pistachio Nuts?: Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic (1992), and the forthcoming Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Intersect. Jenkins earned his doctorate in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a master's degree in communication studies from the University of Iowa.

Raph is a veritable institution at GDC these days, and the author of "A Theory of Fun", a best-selling and well reviewed text on game design. He maintains a website at http://www.raphkoster.com/. He's worked on well known titles such as Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. There isn't much to say, other than if you know Raph, you know he is as high energy as they come.

RJs professional career started with arcade game development at Williams Electronics and led to my role in the creation of the Amiga Computer. He was co-inventor of the Atari Lynx handheld game system and the 3DO entertainment console, and head of software engineering at Ericsson Red Jade. It was his pleasure to be Chief Architect for the Fathammer mobile game engine, Anti-Spam Hero for BarracudaNetworks, and VP of Technology for GlobalVR. Currently he guides system software technology development for Sony's next-generation Playstation platform. He has received 10 patents, created 5 successful startup companies, designed 4 hardware platforms, architected 3 operating systems, created two developer support organizations, and helped develop more than 15 video games.

Elan has lead design, writing, technology and production for a wide range of groundbreaking projects both independently and as founding member of 42 Entertainment, he has played key roles on projects including: I Love Bees acknowledged as the most successful “alternate reality game” in history by CNN, ABC, Wired magazine and others. The Beast, the seminal project built for the Spielberg film A.I. that created the genre. Year Zero, the visionary concept album created in collaboration with legendary rock and roll group Nine Inch Nails. Cathy’s Book, the world’s first “fourth wall” interactive novel, with a story that spills off the page to phone numbers, emails, and websites. Cathy has become a phenomenon, an international best-seller published in 20 countries and more than a dozen languages.

Mary Flanagan investigates everyday technologies through critical writing, artwork, and activist design projects. Flanagan's work has been exhibited internationally at museums, festivals, and galleries, including: the Guggenheim, The Whitney Museum of American Art, SIGGRAPH, The Banff Centre, The Moving Image Centre, New Zealand, Central Fine Arts Gallery NY, Artists Space NY, the University of Arizona, University of Colorado-Boulder, and venues in Brazil, France, UK, Canada, Taiwan, New Zealand, and Australia. Her projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Flanagan writes about popular culture and digital media such as computer games, virtual agents, and online spaces in order to understand their affect on culture. Her essays on digital art, cyberculture, and gaming have appeared in periodicals such as Art Journal , Wide Angle , Intelligent Agent, Convergence, and Culture Machine, as well as several books. Her co-edited collection reload: rethinking women + cyberculture with Austin Booth was published by MIT Press in 2002. She is also co-author with Matteo Bittanti of Similitudini. Simboli. Simulacri ( SIMilarities, Symbols, Simulacra ) on The Sims game (in Italian, Unicopli 2003), and the co-editor of the collection re:skin , forthcoming from MIT Press. Flanagan is also the creator of "The Adventures of Josie True," the first web-based adventure game for girls, and is implementing innovations in pedagogical and values-based game design. Mary Flanagan holds MFA and MA degrees from the University of Iowa, a BA in Film from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. in Computational Media focusing on activist game design from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UK. She is the endowed chair of Media Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research group and laboratory in New York is called TiltFactor, a lab focused on the design of activists and socially-conscious software.