James Gee

Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies

Division of Curriculum and Instruction

Mary Lou Fulton College of Education

https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/1054842

James Paul Gee is a member of the National Academy of Education. His book Sociolinguistics and Literacies (1990, Third Edition 2007) was one of the founding documents in the formation of the "New Literacy Studies", an interdisciplinary field devoted to studying language, learning, and literacy in an integrated way in the full range of their cognitive, social, and cultural contexts.  His book An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (1999, Second Edition 2005) brings together his work on a methodology for studying communication in its cultural settings, an approach that has been widely influential over the last two decades.

Professor Gee's most recent books deal with video games, language, and learning. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003, Second Edition 2007) argues that good video games are designed to enhance learning through effective learning principles supported by research in the Learning Sciences.  Situated Language and Learning (2004) places video games within an overall theory of learning and literacy and shows how they can help us in thinking about the reform of schools.  His most recent book is Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays (2007). Professor Gee has published widely in journals in linguistics, psychology, the social sciences, and education.

Markus Gross

Director of Disney Research Zurich, and

Full Professor of Computer Science

ETH Zurich

http://graphics.ethz.ch/~grossm/home.php

Dr. Gross is a professor of computer science at ETH Zurich, head of the Computer Graphics Laboratory. In 2008, Prof. Gross was appointed as the director of the newly founded Disney Research Zurich (DRZ) laboratory (www.disneyresearch.com). DRZ is one of two external research laboratories that have recently been established by The Walt Disney Company and by its business units. The second laboratory is located in Pittsburgh (DRP) with a strong link to Carnegie Mellon University. The involved Disney business units include Disney Animation Studios, Image Movers Digital, Imagineering, Disney Interactive Media Group, ESPN, and others. The mission of the two laboratories is to conduct applied research in computer animation, geometric modeling, computational photography, image generation, video processing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and related fields.

For more than 20 years Prof. Gross has been pursuing basic and applied research in computer graphics, image generation and display, geometric modeling, and computer animation. His research interests include point-based graphics, physically-based modeling, immersive displays, and 3D video. Prof. Gross is a member of ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH, a senior member of IEEE, a member of the IEEE, and a fellow of the Eurographics Association. From 2002-2006 he was a member of the ETH research commission. Prof. Gross serves on the boards of numerous international research institutes, societies, and governmental organizations. He also co-founded Cyfex AG, Novodex AG, LiberoVision AG, and Dybuster AG.

Jane McGonigal

Director of Game Research & Development

Institute for the Future

http://www.iftf.org/user/46

http://blog.avantgame.com/

Jane McGonigal takes play seriously. She studies the power of games to impact the real-world -- and she creates games that do just that. A pioneer in the field of "alternate reality gaming", her previous projects include The Lost Ring, World Without Oil, Cruel 2 B Kind, and I Love Bees. She is an expert on applying game design and game theory to real work and real business, and has consulted and developed internal game workshops for leading technology companies in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., as well as more than a dozen Fortune Global 500 Companies. MIT Technology Review named her one of the top 35 innovators changing the world through technology, for her role in pioneering the field of alternate reality gaming, and Harvard Business Review called her theory of "alternate reality business" one of the "Top 20 Breakthrough Ideas of 2008." Her alternate reality games have received the Innovation Award from the International Game Developers Association, the Gaming Award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and Year in Review honors from The New York Times She has keynoted SXSW Interactive, the Game Developers Conference, ETech, the Web 2.0 Summit, and has a PhD from UC Berkeley in performance studies.

Randy Pagulayan

User Research team

Microsoft Game Studios

Randy Pagulayan manages the User Research team at Microsoft Game Studios (MGS).  For nearly 10 years, Randy has been involved with pioneering user testing methods in the entertainment space and more recently, is leading his team at the forefront of the next generation of user interactions by developing and defining best practices for gesture-based interactions for interactive entertainment experiences.

During his time at MGS, he has led user research efforts on numerous games, including Top Spin, RalliSport Challenge, Age of Empires III, and Halo 2 & 3.  He also has co-authored several book chapters on user-centered design in games and game testing methodologies, and also has been featured in a cover story in Wired (Sept, 2007) representing the work of his team.  Before joining Microsoft, Randy was part of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Group at Motorola, and has been published in several scientific journals, including Journal of Experimental Psychology, Brain Research Bulletin, and Human Movement Science. Randy has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cincinnati.