< Back Dr Thryn Henderson University of York iGGi Alum Thryn’s phd explored the practices of personal vignette games, with a particular interest in the vignette game’s approaches to digital persona, their roots in approachable DIY culture, and their importance to marginalised creators. Publications from their work can be found in the Digra 2020 archive and Persona Studies Volume 6, Issue 2 . Thryn’s interest in gaming grows from a delight in telling stories. They endeavour to find the spaces where play incorporates and encourages collaborative narrative, poetry, theatre, activism, subversion, surprise and expression. Most of Thryn’s work in playful media can be found in zines, cardboard installations, paper games, hidden screens, or roaming through the woods around the UK. They are a co-founder of the playful design co-operative Furtive Shambles, currently producing experimental live and tabletop game experiences. Email thrynhenderson@gmail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Design & Development - Previous Next

< Back Nirit Binyamini Ben Meir Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Nirit Binyamini Ben-Meir is a designer/ artist based in London. Her work explores the interconnection between society, technology and ecology. She is an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art London, where she gained her MA in Information Experience Design. She has a professional background in visual communication and interaction design. She uses participatory installations, digital tools and responsive plants to create experiences for humans to interact with their biosphere. She combines ecological systems with technology to challenge human perception and provoke thought about bioethics, power relations, and the Anthropocene implications. Nirit’s main research interests are around More-Than-Human Interactions and the integration of living organisms into digital interactions. She investigates how these hybrid interactions may help mediate relatable, sensory experiences with plants and influence people's attitudes towards ecological stewardship. She is developing the Bio-Digital Garden concept, which combines computational elements and living moss, a responsive plant that gives qualitative visual feedback to changes in its environment in real-time. Her exploration focuses on the potential of using human-computer-plant to identify current weak points in pro-environmental behaviour and care for non-human entities, as well as influence people's perceived accountability through tangible feedback, bridging time-scale gaps, and generating a sense of urgency. Email n.binyaminiben-meir@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Prof. Sebastian Deterding Featured Publication(s): POD/Post-anthropocentric design: World Oceans Day 2022 Post-anthropocentric design lab (PADLab). The AI art school: A speculative design workshop The PAD Framework: Postdigital Design Education for Post-Anthropocentric Futures Domestic Cultures of Plant Care: A Moss Terrarium Probe Experience as a transformational practice Design Methods for Accessing the Pluriverse Forging new narratives Themes Applied Games Creative Computing Design & Development - Previous Next

< Back James Gardner University of York iGGi PG Researcher Final-year PhD student at the University of York and Co-Founder of pxld.ai, an AI startup for VFX. My research focuses on inverse rendering, scene representation learning, and world models. I previously held a Research Fellowship at the University of York and interned as a Research Scientist at Toshiba. An MEng graduate and IET Prize winner, I contribute to the open source project Nerfstudio and have reviewed for NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, and BMVC. My work is published in top-tier venues including TPAMI, NeurIPS, CVPR, and ECCV. A description of James' research: My research explores how AI systems can build richer world models from the limited views available in images and video. I study representations that reason beyond the image plane: what lies outside the camera’s view, how light and visibility shape observations, and how future views can be predicted from partial evidence. This work sits at the intersection of computer vision, machine learning, and computer graphics, aiming to learn models that are aware of space, direction, and scene structure. In the long term, it supports more capable systems for understanding, reconstructing, and editing visual worlds, with applications in immersive media, games, VFX, robotics, and augmented reality. Email james.gardner@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): The Sky's the Limit: Relightable Outdoor Scenes via a Sky-Pixel Constrained Illumination Prior and Outside-In Visibility Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dimitris Menexopoulos Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Dimitris Menexopoulos, also known as Menex, is a versatile music composer, sound designer, audio technologist and multi-instrumentalist from Thessaloniki, Greece, currently based in London, UK. With an academic background in geoscience, electronic production and information experience design, he draws elements from a broad knowledge base across art, science and technology to inform his work. He has worked in film, games, XR, branding, fashion and the automotive sector for more than ten years. He is a full BAFTA member. A description of Dimitris' research: Procedural content generation supports the creation of rich and varied games, but audio design has not kept pace with such innovation. Often the visual aspects of every asset in the scene may be procedurally rendered, yet audio developers still largely rely on pre - recorded samples in order to carry out their tasks. However, much of the information required to determine smooth audio - visual interactions is already included in the game assets. For example, the size, shape, material and movement of assets offer potential types of data that can drive audio algorithms directly. This research explores how available graphics information in the game engine can be used to generate the sound effects produced when objects interact in real - time, by combining the affordances of procedural audio and sonification. Email contact@menex.world Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Josh Reiss Dr Tom Collins Featured Publication(s): Procedural Sonification of Environmental Phenomena for Realistic Sound Design Using texture maps to procedurally generate sound in virtual environments The State of the Art in Procedural Audio Themes Creative Computing Game Audio - Previous Next

< Back Dr Memo Akten Goldsmiths iGGi Alum Real-time, interactive, multi-modal media synthesis and continuous control using generative deep models for enhancing artistic expression Real-time, interactive, multi-modal media synthesis and continuous control using generative deep models for enhancing artistic expression. This research investigates how the latest developments in Deep Learning can be used to create intelligent systems that enhance artistic expression. These are systems that learn – both offline and online – and people interact with and gesturally ‘conduct’ to expressively produce and manipulate text, images and sounds. The desired relationship between human and machine is analogous to that between an Art Director and graphic designer, or film director and video editor – i.e. a visionary communicates their vision to a ‘doer’ who produces the output under the direction of the visionary, shaping the output with their own vision and skills. Crucially, the desired human-machine relationship here also draws inspirations from that between a pianist and piano, or a conductor and orchestra – i.e. again a visionary communicates their vision to a system which produces the output, but this communication is real-time, continuous and expressive; it’s an immediate response to everything that has been produced so far, creating a closed feedback loop. The key area that the research tackles is as follows: Given a large corpus (e.g. thousands or millions) of example data, we can train a generative deep model. That model will hopefully contain some kind of ‘knowledge’ about the data and its underlying structure. The questions are: i) How can we investigate what the model has learnt? ii) how can we do this interactively and in real-time, and expressively explore the knowledge that the model contains iii) how can we use this to steer the model to produce not just anything that resembles the training data, but what *we* want it to produce, *when* we want it to produce it, again in real-time and through expressive, continuous interaction and control. Memo Akten is an artist and researcher from Istanbul, Turkey. His work explores the collisions between nature, science, technology, ethics, ritual, tradition and religion. He studies and works with complex systems, behaviour, algorithms and software; and collaborates across many disciplines spanning video, sound, light, dance, software, online works, installations and performances. Akten received the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in 2013 for his collaboration with Quayola, ‘Forms’. Exhibitions and performances include the Grand Palais, Paris; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Royal Opera House, London; Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow; La Gaîté lyrique, Paris; Holon Design Museum, Israel and the EYE Film Institute, Amsterdam. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email memo@memo.tv Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Top-Rated LABS Abstracts 2021 Deep visual instruments: realtime continuous, meaningful human control over deep neural networks for creative expression Deep Meditations: Controlled navigation of latent space Learning to see: you are what you see Calligraphic stylisation learning with a physiologically plausible model of movement and recurrent neural networks Mixed-initiative creative interfaces Learning to see Real-time interactive sequence generation and control with Recurrent Neural Network ensembles Collaborative creativity with Monte-Carlo Tree Search and Convolutional Neural Networks Sequence generation with a physiologically plausible model of handwriting and Recurrent Mixture Density Networks Deepdream is blowing my mind All watched over by machines of loving grace: Deepdream edition Realtime control of sequence generation with character based Long Short Term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Susanne Binder Queen Mary University of London iGGi Manager iGGi Admin iGGi Manager @ QMUL ; alongside David Hull (iGGi Manager @ UoY) , and supported by Shopna Begum , Helen Tilbrook and Oliver Roughton, she's mostly in charge of making things run at iGGi with particular focus on iGGi-QMUL-specific admin iGGi-QMUL-specific student concerns PR, website and social media industry liaison Email s.binder@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes - Previous Next

< Back Dr Ildar Farkhatdinov Queen Mary University of London Supervisor Dr Ildar Farkhatdinov is a Lecturer in Robotics at QMUL since 11/2016 and a Turing Institute Fellow. He is an internationally leading expert in assistive robotics and human-machine interaction. He is a principle investigator of several projects on wearable robotics, mobility assistance and haptic interfaces (including funding from the UK government on supernumerary robotic limbs and assistive wheelchairs, £500k+). Several of his research works were recognised as the best paper or finalists for best paper awards at leading robotics conferences. Before joining QMUL, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Human Robotics group of the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London (2013-16). He earned Ph.D. in Robotics in 2013 (Sorbonne University, UPMC, France), M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in 2008 (KoreaTech, South Korea) and B.Sc. in Automation and Control in 2006 (Moscow University, Russia). He has actively collaborated on a number of large-scale research projects: EPSRC NCNR to create novel robotic solutions for the nuclear industry; EU FP7 BALANCE to develop balance and robotic walking assistance for the elderly; EU FP7 SYMBITRON to develop exoskeleton control for people with spinal cord injury. My research interest relevant to CDT IGGI include serious games for medical applications, as well as using game theory to investigate human-machine interaction. Research themes: Game Design Serious games Virtual reality Game theory Email i.farkhatdinov@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Design & Development Game AI Immersive Technology Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Jo Iacovides University of York Supervisor Jo Iacovides, is a Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of York, UK. Her research interests lie in Human Computer Interaction with a particular focus on understanding the role of learning within the player experience, and on investigating complex emotional experiences in the context of digital play. In addition, she is interested in exploring how games and playful technologies can created for a range of purposes, such as education, citizen science, or wellbeing. She is an active member of the HCI and games community and serves on the Steering Committee for the annual CHI PLAY conference. She has received awards for a work on examining reflection and gaming (best paper, CHI PLAY 2018), evaluating serious experience in games (honourable mention, CHI 2015) and for the game Resilience Challenge, which encourages healthcare practitioners to consider how they adapt safely under pressure (first prize, 2017 Annual Resilience Healthcare Network symposium). She is interested supervising students that have a mix of qualitative, mixed method or design experience that they wish to apply to the study of digital games and playful technologies. Possible topics include exploring the effects of negative emotion in the context of playful approaches to persuasion; or examining how games can support wellbeing (particularly in relation to challenging life experiences). Research themes: Game Design Games with a Purpose Player Experience Email jo.iacovides@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Prof. Marian Ursu Goldsmiths Supervisor Marian Ursu has a first degree in Computer Science, a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, and has worked over the past twenty years in the development of new forms of mediated expression and interaction, in the space of convergence of digital technology with creative practice. He worked at Goldsmiths, University of London, pioneering “creative computing”, a term denoting a fundamental link between digital technologies, the arts and media. At York, he led the development of the Interactive Media subject area in the department of Theatre Film Television and Interactive Media, inherently interdisciplinary, building on Computer Science, User Experience Design, Media Practice and Cultural Studies. He is a co-founder and the Director of the Digital Creativity (DC) Labs ( https://digitalcreativity.ac.uk ), a centre of excellence in impact-driven research in creativity for games, narrative media and the rich space of media convergence that lies in between, and Co-Director of XR Stories ( https://xrstories.co.uk ), a creative industries partnership working across film, TV, games, media arts, heritage, advertising and technology to champion a new future in storytelling, in which he leads on Research and Development. His personal research is situated in the area of narrative experiences in scree media – shared screens (film, TV), personal screens (games, social media), stories in VR, XR narrative experiences – drawing from and building on established narrative art-forms and media including film and TV, radio, theatre, and opera. One of his key research objective is to explore the creative process that emerges in dialogue between humans and machines (AI). On one hand, this is necessary for the authoring of more complex narrative experiences that truly exploit the affordances of interactive and immersive digital media technologies. On the other hand, this is a yet poorly untapped space of opportunities, potentially conducive to significant findings. He is particularly interested in supervising students interested in exploring creativity in dialogue with AI and/or the development of novel narrative experiences, in topics including: Conceptualising the space of interactive storytelling Developing authoring tools and techniques for interactive storytelling Creating new forms of narrative engagement Analysing the concept of creativity in interactive media which emerges in conversation with AI Research themes: Narrative Games; Narrative Experiences Storytelling with Convergent Media Object-Based Media Computational Creativity Live mediated experiences (performance, sports, esports) Entertainment media and mental health Games and Theatre Email marian.ursu@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Creative Computing Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Laura Helsby University of York iGGi Alum Laura Helsby is a HCI researcher with a background in psychology, currently examining how features of games might be beneficial to wellbeing and mood. She is particularly interested in how people with persistent low mood play and experience games, and what this might mean for their wellbeing. So far, she has conducted one interview study asking people with low mood what they play and why, and one diary study investigating the 'in the moment' effects and motivations for gaming. Future plans involve making more direct measures of the impact of particular games on wellbeing, as well as looking further into the FPS and simulation genres to unpack what about these games might make them appealing to people with persistent low mood. Laura has achieved an MSc in Foundations in Clinical Psychology from Newcastle University and a BSc in Psychology from the University of York. In her spare time, Laura enjoys denying she is a computer scientist at all. Her hobbies include reviewing books professionally, board game nights and of course, playing video games. Email laura.helsby@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Prof. Paul Cairns Dr Jo Iacovides Featured Publication(s): Exploring the player experience of people with persistent low mood "Leave our kids alone!": Exploring Concerns Reported by Parents in 1-star Reviews "Leave our kids alone!": Exploring Concerns Reported by Parents in 1-star Reviews Do People Use Games to Compensate for Psychological Needs During Crises? A Mixed-Methods Study of Gaming During COVID-19 Lockdowns Themes Applied Games Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Lorenzo Jamone Queen Mary University of London Supervisor I am a Lecturer in Robotics and Director of the CRISP group (Cognitive Robotics and Intelligent Systems for the People) at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) of the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). The CRISP group is part of ARQ (Advanced Robotics at Queen Mary). Since October 2018, I have been a Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. I am interested in understanding human (and animal) intelligence, by using computational techniques that include computer simulations and real robots. My research topics include: human creativity and creative problem solving, human perception, human-human non-verbal communication, object affordances, tool use, body schema, eye-hand coordination, dexterous manipulation and object exploration, human-robot interaction and collaboration, tactile and force sensing. I am interested in supervising students with an engineering, computer science or behavioural sciences background on the following topics: Creating computational models of human creativity Creating computational models of decisional agents Email l.jamone@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Creative Computing - Previous Next

< Back Alex Flint University of York iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Alex has an academic background in Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction. Their Master’s dissertation comparing measures of perceived challenge and demand in video games was published at CHI 2023. Alex has previously worked on the Research Operations team at PlaytestCloud and as a freelance Games User Researcher. They are also a Student Video Games Ambassador for UKIE, and regularly volunteer at conferences such as CHI Play and the GamesUR Summit. When they aren’t at their desk, you can find Alex figure skating, playing roller derby, or DJing 80’s rock. Alex’s research focuses on levelling up the narrative testing practices of indie video game developers. Narrative testing is a specialised games user research (GUR) practice that requires resources and knowledge not easily accessible to indie developers, meaning they are often disadvantaged compared to their larger AAA counterparts. Thus, Alex's work proposes the direct study of indie developers to level the playing field by democratising narrative testing best practices and empowering non-research team members to conduct GUR activities. Alex aims to achieve this goal by: 1) Defining narrative testing best practices. 2) Identifying key challenges indie developers face when evaluating narrative. 3) Co-designing and evaluating narrative testing prototype(s). 4) Assessing methods for disseminating GUR knowledge. The successful completion of this work will impact how indie studios conduct narrative testing, ultimately leading to the creation of better games. Email alex.flint@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor: Dr Alena Denisova Dr Jon Hook Featured Publication(s): Comparing Measures of perceived challenge and demand in video games: Exploring the conceptual dimensions of CORGIS and VGDS Faking handedness: Individual differences in ability to fake handedness, social cognitions of the handedness of others, and a forensic application using Bayes’ theorem Themes Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next