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< Back Dr Jon Hook University of York Supervisor Jon Hook is a Senior Lecturer (equivalent to an Associate Professor) in Interactive Media in the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media at the University of York. His research is situated in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and explores the design and development of new interactive media content forms and tools to support their creation. This research combines his deep interest in new forms of interactive technology and media with empirical, theoretical and methodological perspectives, in the human-centred design of novel interfaces and interaction techniques for a broad range of artistic and everyday creative practices. His current research is focused on the design and development of new forms of responsive and immersive media content, with a particular interest in data-driven storytelling. He was recently the principal investigator of the EPSRC funded Perspective Media: Personalised Video Storytelling for Data Engagement project. He also a co-investigator of the InnovateUK WEAVR: Pioneering Fully Integrated Cross-Reality Spectator Experiences in Esports and Beyond immersive experiences demonstrator and the Digital Creativity Labs – a £4m EPSRC, AHRC and InnovateUK funded research centre exploring impact-driven research in the creative industries. He was also previously Co-I of the AHRC Within the walls of York Gaol: Memory, Place and the Immersive Museum the AHRC Digital Creativity for Regional Museums: Immersive Experiences Smart Commissioning Toolkit. He is especially interested in supervising students who’d like to do HCI research that involves making and evaluating new interactive media experiences. Some example topic areas that he might be the right supervisor for include, but aren’t limited to: Games to support broader data engagement and literacy Data-driven storytelling in, and about, games The intersection between games and interactive documentary film Responsive and interactive video storytelling in games The space where theatre and games converge Cultural heritage engagement using games Research themes: Game Design Games with a Purpose E-Sports Player Experience jonathan.hook@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://www.jonhook.co.uk Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-hook-641b597/ LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/jonathanhook Github Themes Applied Games Esports Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Adrián Barahona-Ríos University of York iGGi Alum From 2018 and in collaboration with Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe, Adrián is researching strategies to increase the efficiency in the creation of procedural audio models for video games by using DSP and machine learning approaches. His main research interests, applied to the synthesis of sound effects, are generative deep learning (GANs, RNNs and VAEs) to synthesise raw audio and machine learning to find out the best parameters for a synthesiser to generate a target sound. Adrián has been enthusiastic about sound and more specifically about game audio since he began his studies. By the time he completed an HND in Creative Media Production in Madrid, he started working in the industry as a recording engineer in an ADR studio for the Spanish localisation of video games (such as Fallout 4, Until Dawn or Just Cause 3). He moved from Spain to the UK in 2015 to take a BA (top-up) in Music Production at the Southampton Solent University and an MSc in Sound Design at the University of Edinburgh immediately after. During that journey, he focused his career in procedural audio and explored ways to create models for interactive applications by using different techniques. adrian.barahona.rios@gmail.com Email Mastodon https://www.adrianbarahonarios.com/ Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianbarahona LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/adrianbarahona Github Supervisor Dr Tom Collins Featured Publication(s): Deep Learning for the Synthesis of Sound Effects NoiseBandNet: controllable time-varying neural synthesis of sound effects using filterbanks Sonifying energy consumption using SpecSinGAN SpecSinGAN: Sound Effect Variation Synthesis Using Single-Image GANs Synthesising Knocking Sound Effects Using Conditional WaveGAN Perception of emotions in knocking sounds: An evaluation study Perceptual Evaluation of Modal Synthesis for Impact-Based Sounds Illuminating Game Space Using MAP-Elites for Assisting Video Game Design Themes Creative Computing Game Audio - Previous Next

Partners (All) iGGi is a collaboration between Uni of York + Queen Mary Uni of London: the largest training programme worldwide for doing a PhD in digital games. iGGi Partners We are excited to be collaborating with a number of industry partners. iGGi works with industry in some of the following ways: Researcher Industry Knowledge Exchange - this can take many forms, from what looks like a traditional placement, to a short term consultancy, to an ongoing relationship between the researcher and their industry partner. Researcher Sponsorship - for some of our researchers, their relationship with their industry partner is reinforced by sponsorship from the company. This is an excellent demonstration of the strength of the commitment and the success of the collaborations. In Kind Contributions - iGGi industry partners can contribute by attending and/or featuring in our annual conference, offering their time to give talks and masterclasses for our students, or even taking part in our annual game jam! Check out our Industry Info page here to see these types of collaboration described in more detail. There are many ways for our industry partners to work with iGGi. If you are interested in becoming involved, please do contact us so we can discuss what might be suitable for you. 22 Cans AI and Games Autistica BT BetaJester Limited BiG BlitzGame Studios Bossa Studios British Broadcasting Corporation BBC British Games Institute (BGI) CBT Clinics COMIC Research Carnegie Mellon University Cooperative Innovations Creative AI Creative Assembly Die Gute Fabrik Digital Catapult Dubit Limited Durham University ESL UK Electronic Arts (EA) Enigmatic Studios Falmouth University Fluttermind LLC

< Back Prof. Anders Drachen Supervisor Anders Drachen, PhD, (born 1976) is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science, with Digital Creativity Labs and Weavr at the University of York (UK). His work in games research is focused on user behavior, user experience and audience engagement and the application of data science, information systems modelling, business intelligence, design and Human-Computer Interaction in these domains. His research and professional work are carried out in collaboration with companies across the Creative Industries, from big publishers to indies. He is recognized as one of the most influential people in his domains of work and have authored over a hundred publications with international colleagues across industry and academia. Having lived and worked on four different continents, Anders Drachen has had the mixed pleasure of fending off three shark attacks in Africa and Australia. He is also the youngest Dane in history to publish a cooking book – dedicated to ice cream. Research themes: Data Science, Analytics, Machine Learning in Interactive Media Big Data, behavior- and social media analytics in the Creative Industries Data Mining and Business Informatics in the Creative Industries Data-Driven Storytelling and Audience Engagement Games User Research and User Experience in Games Data-Driven Design and Development Human-Computer Interaction Esports and Sports Analytics Behavioral/Market Analytics and Business Intelligence Entrepreneurship in the Creative Industries Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies anders.drachen@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://www.andersdrachen.com Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/drachen/ LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Design & Development Esports Game Data Player Research - Previous Next

< Back David Hull University of York iGGi Manager iGGi Admin I have worked at the University of York since October 1995, almost all of it in the Department of Computer Science. My various roles have included Laboratory and Facilities Manager, Technical Manager and, most recently, Project Manager. Outside work, I have been a change-ringer for almost 50 years, and am currently a member of the band that rings the bells weekly at York Minster. I am also an accredited teacher of bellringing. I do parkrun most weeks, alongside the occasional 10k and half marathon, like to watch cricket, and play the clarinet and piano. iggi-admin@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes - Previous Next

< Back Dr Miles Hansard Queen Mary University of London Supervisor Miles Hansard is a computer vision researcher, working on geometric and statistical methods for 3D scene understanding and rendering. He is also interested in active 3D sensing technologies, including depth cameras, lidar, and millimetre-wave radar. His recent projects include GPU methods for real-time atmospheric effects, commodity radar localization of UAVs, and grasp planning for robotic manipulation. He has also worked on human perceptual processes, including eye-movements, geometric judgements, and binocular stereopsis. Miles Hansard is a Senior Lecturer in computer graphics, and a member of the Vision Group and Centre for Advanced Robotics, at QMUL. He is available to supervise projects in the following areas: Simulation of complex physical effects (e.g. the motion of cloth, fire, and fluids), using machine learning. Physically plausible character animation in complex environments (e.g. slippery terrain), using machine learning. miles.hansard@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~milesh/ Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Design & Development Game AI Game Data Immersive Technology - Previous Next

< Back Dr Ivan Bravi Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Ivan Bravi has obtained his B.Sc and M.Sc in Engineering of Computer Systems at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. From January to July 2016 he was Visiting Scholar at the NYU’s Game Innovation Lab in New York, under the supervision of Prof. Julian Togelius. Since October 2017 he's an IGGI PhD student at Queen Mary University of London under the supervision of Simon Lucas. Ivan has published several workshop and conference papers in different venues such as IJCAI, Evostar, CIG, FDG, AAAI and CoG. Automatic playtesting of games can significantly streamline the process of designing, developing and releasing a game. It is also a possible application of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): having a set of flexible algorithms that can play games regardless of their type decouples the two problems (playtesting and developing AGI algorithms) advancing both independently. When it comes to developing new AGI algorithms for game-playing a crucial characteristic is the ability of expressing different behaviours. Most of the research has focused on peak performance game-playing agents, this research project instead focuses on producing agents that are able to show different playing styles (behaviours) with no explicit domain information embedded in the algorithm. Behavioural expressivity arises from the parameterisable components of an algorithm. In classical Statistical Forward Planning (SFP) it is very straightforward to adjust these, e.g. how far ahead it's planning. A very important component of SFP algorithms is the heuristic function used to evaluate the quality of game states. Being able to define heuristics in a game-agnostic manner is a key element in maintaining the algorithms generally. i.bravi@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/ivanbravi Github Supervisor(s): Dr Diego Pérez-Liébana Prof. Simon Lucas Featured Publication(s): Evaluating and Enhancing Gameplay Behavioural Expressivity of Planning-Playing Artificial Intelligence for Automatic Playtesting Self-adaptive MCTS for General Video Game Playing Rinascimento: Playing Splendor-Like Games With Event-Value Functions Rinascimento: searching the behaviour space of Splendor Rinascimento: using event-value functions for playing Splendor Learning local forward models on unforgiving games Rinascimento: Optimising statistical forward planning agents for playing splendor A local approach to forward model learning: Results on the game of life game Game AI hyperparameter tuning in rinascimento Efficient evolutionary methods for game agent optimisation: Model-based is best Shallow decision-making analysis in general video game playing Evolving UCT alternatives for general video game playing Evolving game-specific UCB alternatives for general video game playing Themes Game AI Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Phoebe Hesketh University of York iGGi Alum Phoebe's PhD explored how people learn to play games through gameplay, online media, and community interaction. At the University of York, Phoebe worked on her skills as a researcher by exploring multiple methodologies and disciplines. She built upon her quantitative research skills from Bristol with qualitative research during their PhD including grounded theory and thematic analysis. She took courses in user-centred design and evaluation and designing for accessible player experiences (through AbleGamers). She participated in game jams and game development courses for experience and technical design. She also gave a talk at DEVELOP 2021 communicating and sharing her research and expertise in how players learn to play games to help designers with their onboarding for their games. She originally studied Engineering Mathematics at the University of Bristol which focused on systems and mathematical modelling and simulation, the mathematics and implementation of AI and Machine Learning systems, programming in object-oriented programming languages such as C++ and Java, and developed ray tracers in computer graphics courses. She also worked on projects in linguistics, logistics, computer vision, and physics. Once completing her PhD, Phoebe moved into the games industry as an AI programmer for several years before looking to return to games and player research. She has set up her own company, Take A Mo, that focuses on helping developers analyse their systems and internal systems to maximise access for players in usability, onboarding, accessibility, and representation. She is a currently carving her niche in the industry. phoebe@takeamo.co.uk Email Mastodon http://www.takeamo.co.uk Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoebe-hesketh/ LinkedIn BlueSky Github Supervisors: Prof. Sebastian Deterding Dr Jeremy Gow Featured Publication(s): How Players Learn Team-versus-Team Esports: First Results from A Grounded Theory Study Themes Esports Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Ignacio Castro Queen Mary University of London Supervisor Ignacio Castro is Lecturer in Data Analytics at Queen Mary University of London. His work sits at the intersection between economics and networks. His interest spans from online social networks and moderation to the macroscopic evolution of the Internet. He has been an investigator on three major grants that hold over £6 million in funding. His work appears in top tier journals and conferences including Web Conference, ACM SIGCOMM, ACM SIGMETRICS, ACM IMC, ICWSM, and IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking. He is interested in supervising students with a background in social network analysis, NLP and/or machine learning. i.castro@qmul.ac.uk Email https://mastodon.social/@ignactro Mastodon https://icastro.info/ Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-de-castro-arribas-44a48117/ LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Applied Games Game AI Game Data Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Cade McCall University of York Supervisor Cade McCall is an experimental psychologist. He uses games and virtual environments to study emotion, cognition, and behaviour during threatening experiences. His work explores how threat unfolds over time as revealed by dynamics in motion tracking data, psychophysiological measures, and experience-sampling. McCall is interested in supervising projects with a psychological focus, including: ● human interactions with autonomous systems ● the use of games to manipulate emotions ● social interactions within games Research themes: Games with a purpose Player experience Game analytics cade.mccall@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://www.york.ac.uk/psychology/staff/academicstaff/cm1582/#research-content Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Applied Games Game Data Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Tony Stockman Queen Mary University of London Supervisor Dr Stockman is an interaction designer/researcher who investigates how technology can enhance accessibility and improve human performance. He is particularly interested in technology to support spatial cognition and wayfinding, health monitoring and improve performance levels in sport and music. This includes the role of games in simulating these domains and supporting skill acquisition and enhanced performance. He is a Board member and former president of the International Community for Auditory Display ( www.icad.org ). He has organised 6 international workshops on a range of HCI topics, and has been on the organising committee of 10 international HCI-related conferences. Topics on which he has recently published include participatory design and prototyping, auditory overviews for route guidance, self monitoring of biological signals and accessible collaborative working. He is particularly interested in supervising students with a Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, HCI, or behavioural sciences background on the following topics: Simulation to support accessibility and skill acquisition in team sports Intelligent audio mostly games to support learning Intelligent Audio or audio-haptic approaches to health monitoring and biofeedback Intelligent systems to support individual or collaborative music making Research themes: Intelligent simulation systems Interaction design for simulated sports Game Audio and Music Game Design Games with a Purpose t.stockman@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Applied Games Design & Development Esports Game AI Game Audio Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Patrik Huber University of York Supervisor Patrik Huber is a researcher, developer and entrepreneur, working on 3D face reconstruction and face analysis in images and videos using 3D face models. He is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Computer Vision in the Department of Computer Science of the University of York, UK, and he’s the Founder of 4dface.io, a small start-up specialising in 3D face models and realistic 3D face avatars for professional applications. His research is focused on computer vision, in particular, he is interested in the question of how to robustly obtain a metrically accurate, pose-invariant 3D representation of a face from 2D images and videos. He is interested in face tracking, 3D face modelling, analysis and synthesis, metrically accurate 3D face shape reconstruction, inverse rendering, and combining deep learning with 3D face models. Patrik is particularly interested in supervising students with a strong background and interest in computer vision, machine learning, computer graphics, and modern C++/Python, on topics related to creating 3D face avatars of players for immersive playing and social experiences , and using face analytics for professional e-sports . Research themes: 3D face avatars for games AR/VR Serious games and social interaction Immersive 3D player experiences Game Analytics Games with a Purpose E-Sports patrik.huber@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://www.patrikhuber.ch/ Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrik-huber/ LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/patrikhuber Github Themes Applied Games Esports Game Data Immersive Technology Player Research - Previous Next