Speaker Bios

Jamie Antonisse is entering his final year as a Master's student in USC's Interactive Media program. Before coming to California in 2006, he worked as a 3rd grade teacher and screenwriter in New York City. Aside from his efforts in designing and coding Hush, he has worked on several other USC projects, including writing and design for The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and application development for the Institute for Creative Technologies.

Chris Crawford earned a Master of Science degree in Physics from the University of Missouri in 1975. After teaching physics for several years, he joined Atari as a game designer in 1979. There he created a number of games: Energy Czar, an educational simulation about the energy crisis, Scram, a nuclear power plant simulation, Eastern Front (1941), a wargame, Gossip, a social interaction game, and Excalibur, an Arthurian game. Following the collapse of Atari in 1984, Crawford took up the Macintosh. He created Balance of Power, a game about diplomacy, Patton Versus Rommel, a wargame, Trust & Betrayal, a social interaction game, Balance of the Planet, an environmental simulation game, and Patton Strikes Back, a wargame. In 1992, Crawford decided to leave game design and concentrate his energies on interactive storytelling, a field that he believed would become important. He created a major technology for interactive storytelling systems, patenting it in 1997. He is now commercializing his technology at his company website at storytron.com. Crawford has written five published books: The Art of Computer Game Design, now recognized as a classic in the field, in 1982; Balance of Power (the book) in 1986; The Art of Interactive Design in 2002; Chris Crawford on Game Design in 2003; and Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling in 2004. He created the first periodical on game design, the Journal of Computer Game Design, in 1987. He founded and served as Chairman of the Computer Game Developers’ Conference, now known as the Game Developers’ Conference. Crawford has given hundreds of lectures at conferences and universities around the world, and published dozens of magazine articles and academic papers. Crawford served as computer system designer and observer for the 1999 and 2002 NASA Leonid MAC airborne missions; he also has done some analysis of the resulting data. He lives in southern Oregon with his wife, 3 dogs, 10 cats, 5 ducks, and 3 burros.

Rafael Fajardo is the founder of SWEAT, a loose collaborative that makes socially conscious video games. SWEAT has published four video games, two that comment on the game-like nature of (il)legal human traffic at the US/Mexico border, and two that explore the effects of (il)licit drug agriculture in Colombia. SWEAT’s games have been exhibited internationally. Fajardo also teaches at the University of Denver where he is an associate professor of Electronic Media Arts Design and the Director of Digital Media Studies. With his colleague, Scott Leutenegger, he has overseen the creation of Squeezed, a videogame, co-sponsored by mtvU that comments on the lives of (im)migrant farm workers in the US. With Dr. Leutenegger and with Dr. Debra Austin he has received a multi-year grant from the National Science Foundation to explore the teaching of videogames as a holistic pedagogy in high schools.

Carla Fisher (moderator) is an educational product developer and doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she studies technology and its relationship with human cognition and development, particularly as it applies to children and games. She is also a research fellow with Sesame Workshop through the Teachers College Rose Fellowship. Through her work with companies such as Highlights for Children and PBS KIDS Interactive, she has produced and consulted on the creation of dozens of educational games and web sites for children. Carla also holds a MA in Media Studies from the New School University.

Mary Flanagan investigates novel approaches to play, and is interested in discovering new ways in which play can affect social change. Flanagan, a MacDowell Fellow and a PI or Co-PI on five National Science Foundation awards, directs the tiltfactor lab, a hotbed of radical design research. Her artwork has been shown internationally, her essays on digital culture have appeared in over 20 periodicals and books, and her own books include reload: rethinking women + cyberculture (MIT 2002), re:SKIN (2007), and critical play (forthcoming 2009). http://www.maryflanagan.com; http://www.tiltfactor.org; http://www.valuesatplay.org

Tracy Fullerton is an experimental game designer and associate professor in the Interactive Media Division of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC) where she is director of the USC Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab. Recent credits include faculty advisor for the award-winning student games Cloud, flOw, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and game designer for The Night Journey a unique game/art project with artist Bill Viola. She is the author of Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games (2008), a design book formalizing the creative approach used in the USC Game Innovation Lab and games curriculum.

As game designer, Jim Gasperini is best known for his roles as creator of Hidden Agenda and as Creative Director for SimCity 3000. In the early 1980s, while writing and designing a series of "reader-active" books for Bantam (Time Machine), he wandered into the Colossal Cave (later, Zork.) This was a life-changing encounter: clearly, the computer was not just a tool with which to create interactive storytelling, but the medium itself. After writing early text-adventure games (notably "Star Trek: the Promethean Prophecy"), he conceived "Hidden Agenda," inspired by a visit to his journalist brother Bill in Central America during the time of the Contra war. Game design has figured twice in Jim's career. Before, between, and since, his wandering artistic pursuits have included: video editor, writer of childrens' books, multimedia artist, software user-experience designer/analyst, photographer, screenwriter, and publisher. His CD-ROM artwork "ScruTiny in the Great Round" won many awards including the Grand Prix du Jury MILIA D'Or at the 1996 Cannes multimedia festival. His passion for stereo photography recently led him to start Cockeyed Creations, through which he publishes 3D image sets for museums, National Parks, and zoos. Through Aaron Marcus & Associates he consults, on issues of software conceptual design, for clients ranging from Intel, Ebay, Siemens and Filemaker to small software start-ups and the San Jose Police Department.

James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University. He 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. His most recent books both 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). Prof. Gee has published widely in journals in linguistics, psychology, the social sciences, and education.

Alan Gershenfeld has spent the last twenty years at the intersection of entertainment, technology and social entrepreneurship. He is currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of E-Line Ventures, a ‘double bottom line’ early-stage venture fund focused on empowering individuals, small businesses and underserved communities to better compete in a global marketplace and popular media which engages people in the critical issues of the day. Prior to E-Line, Alan spent seven years as CEO and Co-Founder of netomat, a leader in mobile-web community solutions. As CEO, Alan helped to transform a network-based art project into a pioneering software company. netomat was selected as a Technology Pioneer at the 2007 World Economic Forum at Davos. Before co-founding netomat, Alan spent six years at Activision, a global leader in entertainment software. He was a member of the executive management team which rebuilt Activision from bankruptcy into a profitable, multi-billion dollar industry leader. At Activision, Alan served as Senior Vice President of Activision Studios where he supervised all product development at the company's Los Angeles studios. Titles released under Alan's leadership include Civilization: Call to Power, Asteroids, Muppet Treasure Island, Spycraft, Pitfall, Zork and Tony Hawk Skateboarding. Alan currently serves on the Board of Directors of FilmAid International, Games4Change, Sustainable South Bronx, and on the Advisory Boards of Scenarios USA, Personal Technology Solutions and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center For Educational Media and Research (Sesame Workshop).

Austin Hill is a Canadian entrepreneur who has been creating technology start-ups for 15 years. He is currently CEO and Co-founder of Akoha a new multi-player reality based game based on the concept of pay-it-forward. Incorporating inspirations from virtual worlds, serious gaming and casual gaming Akoha will be the first mainstream meaningful game allowing players to spread deliberate acts of kindness throughout the world. Austin is also Chairman on Standout Jobs and was formally President and Co founder of Zero-Knowledge Systems (renamed Radialpoint in 2002) where he helped the company raise $75 million between 1997 and 2001. He also served as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Zero-Knowledge Systems, CEO of Synomos Inc. (a Zero-Knowledge Systems subsidiary), and Executive-Vice President of Research for Radialpoint. Radialpoint was honoured by Deloitte & Touche as one of Canada’s fastest-growing technology firms in their 2006 Technology Fast 50 award. Austin was awarded the 2001 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Emerging Entrepreneur in Quebec. In 2002 Austin was named a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Karin Hillhouse has worked for Ashoka's Changemakers initiative in Washington DC for the last 10 years, becoming director of partnerships in 2006. Before starting at Ashoka in 1997, Karin was based in Denver, Colorado, and spent several years as a freelance writer, publishing articles, essays, and reflections on literature, art, and architecture, solar energy and historic preservation. She won a writing fellowship from the Rocky Mountain Women's Institute to work on a novel. Additionally, she co-taught "Architectural Theory and Practice" at the University of Colorado at Denver and apprenticed as a landscape architect. As a consultant to Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, she was part of the team instrumental in Colorado's winning a national competition to launch the country's principal research center for the development of solar energy and other renewable energy sources. As a senior policy analyst, she was part of the core start-up staff at the Solar Energy Research Institute (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory). Working for the Environmental Law Institute, Karin was principal investigator and co-author of a National Science Foundation-funded study of the legal and institutional barriers to solar energy development. She was editor of the Open Space Report, a monthly publication of the Rocky Mountain Center on the Environment. Karin earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Smith College, a master's degree in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a master's degree in urban planning and community development from the University of Colorado Denver.

Dr. Justin Hollander is interested in the role of planning and public policy in managing land use and environmental changes associated with shrinking cities. He has worked on brownfields redevelopment, sustainability indicators, eco-industrial development, military base reuse, and smart decline. Dr. Hollander has written extensively on these topics including peer-reviewed scholarly articles and a chapter in the book Recent Advances in Urban and Regional Studies. His first book "Unwanted, Polluted, and Dangerous: America's Worst Abandoned Properties and What Can Be Done About Them" is forthcoming from the University of Vermont Press in the end of 2008. Dr. Hollander has almost a decade of experience as a practitioner in land use and environmental planning at the local, regional, and federal levels, most recently for the Public Buildings Service of the U.S. General Services Administration as a Presidential Management Fellow. Dr. Hollander teaches classes in regional planning, planning history and theory, computer applications, and field projects. His Spring 2007 Physical Planning & Design course pioneered the use of "Second Life" as a platform for 3-D planning work. More information can be found at: Teaching. Professor Hollander's team was selected as finalists in an international competition exploring depopulation in Second Life. Dr. Hollander has a Ph.D. in Planning and Public Policy from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. While at Rutgers, he conducted research at the National Center for Neighborhood and Brownfields Redevelopment. His graduate studies were partially supported through fellowships from the Urban Land Institute and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Tufts University and a Master's Degree in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a Non-Resident Research Fellow with the Genesee Institute.

Devon Johnson is currently pursuing a B.A. in Interactive Entertainment at USC with specializations in Web Development and Interactive Multimedia. Prior to attending USC, she developed a broad skill set within fine arts, which she continues to apply within her digital work. Aside from creating Hush, Devon has worked on another USC game project called Exchanging Cultures. Devon is continuously challenging herself artistically both in and outside of the classroom through freelance work and personal projects and feels that Interactive Entertainment is her ideal creative outlet.

Barry Joseph, Director of the Online Leadership Program, Global Kids, Inc., holds a BA from Northwestern University and an MA in American Studies from New York University. Barry came to Global Kids in 2000 through the New Voices Fellowship of the Academy for Educational Development, funded by the Ford Foundation. He has developed innovative programs in the areas of youth-led online dialogues, video games as a form of youth media, and the educational potential of both social networks and virtual worlds, combining youth development practices with the creation of high profile digital media projects to yield 21st Century Skills. He has also worked with GK's development program to secure funding from a number of foundations and corporations. Barry served on the steering committee of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative and his writing appeared in the Foundation's 2007Ecology of Games volume. He has spoken at numerous conferences and published articles in a wide variety of publications. Barry is one of the cofounders of Games For Change and currently sits on its board.

Zakiyyah Kareem, Project Manager, Girlstart, has dedicated her professional career to informal education programs that empower young people to be leaders in their communities and the world. She currently serves as PI on Girlstart’s NSF-funded IT Girl project, a program that engages high school girls in digital media projects with a purpose. Zakiyyah comes to Girlstart by way of the public education sector where she spent over 5 years supporting teachers, students, administrators, and community partners in the development of high-quality service-learning programs.

Frank Lantz is Creative Director and co-Founder of area/code, a New York based developer that creates cross-media, location-based, and large-scale social games. He has worked in the field of game development for the past 20 years. Before starting area/code, Frank was the Director of Game Design at gameLab, a developer of online and downloadable games. For over 10 years, Frank has taught game design at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. His writings on games, technology and culture have appeared in a variety of publications.

Ellen LaPointe is responsible for developing key strategic private and public sector partnerships to increase HopeLab's institutional resources, leverage the potential impact of its innovative solutions, and raise awareness of HopeLab's work among thought leaders and key stakeholders. She assumed the role of Vice President of Strategic Partnerships in May 2007 following a two-year tenure as Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at HopeLab. Ellen has extensive experience in organizational leadership, strategy development and implementation, partnership cultivation, fund development, communications, financial management, and program oversight. Prior to joining HopeLab, Ellen served as Executive Director of Project Inform, a national nonprofit AIDS treatment information and advocacy organization. She was Director of Clinical Research at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco from 1992 to 1996, and Coordinator of the Brown University AIDS Program prior to that. Ellen is also an attorney and was an associate attorney at the firm of Heller Ehrman LLP in San Francisco from 1999 to 2001. Ellen received her B.A., magna cum laude, in Community Health from Brown University and her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt School of Law.

Richard Lemarchand is a Game Designer at Naughty Dog, creators of the multimillion selling Jak and Daxter and Crash Bandicoot series of games - which have sold over 35 million copies internationally. He was the Lead Game Designer of Naughty Dog’s first game for the PlayStation 3, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, which received a very warm critical and public reception, going on to sell 1.4 million copies in the first five months after its release. Richard has made story-based character-action games the main focus of his design career, and has worked with some of the industry’s best and brightest in the field along the way. His credits also include the Gex and Soul Reaver series of games, and Jak 3 and Jak X: Combat Racing for Naughty Dog. He is a contributor to Game Developer Magazine, and was a speaker at the Game Developers Conference in 2008. His interests include action games and storytelling, design innovation, education and interactivity, and the socially progressive role that art, film and music play in society.

Dr. Michael Levine oversees the Center's efforts to catalyze and support research, innovation and investment in educational media technologies for young children. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Levine served as Vice President of New Media and Executive Director of Education for Asia Society, managing the global nonprofit organization's interactive media and educational initiatives to promote knowledge and understanding of Asia and other world regions, languages and cultures. Previously, Dr. Levine oversaw Carnegie Corporation of New York's groundbreaking work in early childhood development, educational media and primary grades reform, and was a senior advisor to the New York City Schools Chancellor, where he directed dropout prevention, afterschool and early childhood initiatives. Dr. Levine has been a frequent adviser to the U.S. Department of Education and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, writes for public affairs journals, and appears frequently in the media. He was named by Working Mother magazine as one of America's most influential leaders in shaping family and children's policy and serves on numerous nonprofit boards, including We Are Family Foundation, Ready To Learn, Talaris Institute and Teach For America. Levine is also currently a senior associate at the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University's Florence Heller School and his B.S. from Cornell University.

As Associate Director, Silvia Lovato leads the editorial strategy for the PBS KIDS GO! Web site at pbskidsgo.org, PBS's online destination for school-aged children. She has been at PBS Interactive since October 2000. She holds a MA in Communication, Culture, and Technology from Georgetown University. Prior to working at PBS, she worked as a content producer for Terra Networks and washingtonpost.com.

Robert Nashak was appointed Vice President, Worldwide Casual Studios, for the EA Casual Entertainment Label in March 2008. In his role as the head of the Casual Studios Robert will be responsible for the product development strategy and will oversee development of both internal and external development teams. He will partner with EA Casual Product Marketing to set the Casual Entertainment slate. Nr. Nashak is an accomplished studio executive with more than 15 years of game and online entertainment development and management experience. Prior to his current position Robert was Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo! Games where he was the key strategist and business owner for Yahoo! Gaming with a focus around multiple content areas including casual game downloads, multiplayer games services, flash games portal, video game editorial and video content. Prior to this, he was with Glu Mobile for three years as their SVP, Production, and Chief Creative Office. Before joining Glu, Robert held various product development roles at Acclaim, Vivendi, Disney Online, and Knowledge Adventure, where he worked on both core and casual properties.

Sandra Day O'Connor (Retired), Associate Justice, was born in El Paso, Texas, March 26, 1930. She married John Jay O'Connor III in 1952 and has three sons - Scott, Brian, and Jay. She received her B.A. and LL.B. from Stanford University. She served as Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County, California from 1952-1953 and as a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany from 1954-1957. From 1958-1960, she practiced law in Maryvale, Arizona, and served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965-1969. She was appointed to the Arizona State Senate in 1969 and was subsequently reelected to two two-year terms. In 1975 she was elected Judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court and served until 1979, when she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. President Reagan nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat September 25, 1981. Justice O'Connor retired from the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006. Currently, Justice O'Connor is working on several projects to foster national dialogue about the judiciary in our system of government. She has brought together experts at Georgetown Law School and Arizona State University to create Our Courts, which will be an online interactive civics curriculum for middle school students.

Shelley Pasnik is the Director of EDC¹s New York-based Center for Children and Technology (EDC/CCT). Since joining EDC/CCT, much of Shelley¹s time has been devoted to understanding how cultural institutions, especially public broadcasters, private foundations and corporate philanthropies can support learners. She¹s sought out opportunities to work with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Intel, the American Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Hall, AOL, WNET/Thirteen, WGBH and IBM. She also has written for a range of organizations and companies, including the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, Apple, the National School Board Foundation, Cable in the Classroom and PBS, for which she created the Parents Guide to Children and Media. And, she sits on the advisory board for the Global Action Project, a media arts and leadership organization that steadfastly believes young people can transform their communities, by expressing their ideas and by honing their critical literacy.

Cindy Poremba is a digital media theorist, creator and curator researching documentary and video games through Concordia University's Doctoral Humanities program. She has produced and curated non-traditional exhibitions such as the CGSA Artcade, PoV Alternative Games Exhibition, eyeTEASers: Art Podified, and most recently, gamma 256 (Montreal, QC) and The Art of Play Arcade (Pittsburgh, PA), as a member of the Kokoromi collective.

Alex Quinn is the Executive Director for Games for Change. Before joining Games for Change, Alex was Executive Director of the Adult Literacy Media Alliance (ALMA), a project of Education Development Center. ALMA produces the Emmy Award-winning television series, TV411, accompanying website and workbook series, and a range of multimedia literacy and life skills curricula on such topics as health, finance, and family literacy. Alex served as the principal investigator for a multi-year National Science Foundation funded project to develop, promote, and broadly distribute a television-based basic math curriculum for adults. Alex has a background in instructional design, video production, and telecommunications policy, and was the executive director for community media centers in Oregon and New York City. He holds a B.A. degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts and an M.A. in Broadcast Communication Arts from San Francisco State University. For more information, email Alex Quinn at alex [at-sign-here] gamesforchange.org.

Emily Reardon is Supervising Producer in Sesame Workshop's Digital Media department. During her ten years at Sesame Workshop, she has designed and produced educational digital media projects for mobile, web, TV, DVD, console, and CD ROM platforms for mission driven outreach programs, research studies, and commercial projects. Prior to Sesame Workshop, she worked in documentary film and as a baker. She holds a MA degree in Education, Communication, and Technology from New York University's Steinhardt School of Education and a BA degree in Art/ Semiotics as well as English and American Literature from Brown University.

Suzanne Seggerman is President and Co-Founder of Games for Change. Before G4C, Suzanne was a Director at NYC-based think tank Web Lab, where she oversaw a variety of cross-media projects. At Web Lab, she co-curated the show "Provocations" for the 2002 Florida Film Festival, the first national exhibition featuring digital games about social-issues. Her background in online media includes community-oriented interactive environments and the design of non-traditional games, which earned her awards from New Voices New Visions and Communications Arts. Before her involvement with new media technologies, she worked as a documentary film producer for PBS, including on Ken Burns/Stephen Ives PBS series "The West" and as Co-producer of "Race For Life," a humanitarian aid and documentary film about Eastern Europe. Suzanne received a BA from Kenyon College and a Masters from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. For more information, email Suzanne Seggerman at suzanne [at-sign-here] gamesforchange.org.

Bill Shribman is the Executive Producer of WGBH's Interactive Kids Group and oversees all WGBH kids' projects, including those in development, for Web and new platforms. He devised and produced the internationally recognized Curious George, Zoom, Peep and the Big Wide World, and Between the Lions Web sites. He is also a content producer and games designer for the Fetch, Design Squad, Martha Speaks, Arthur, and Postcards from Buster sites. Traffic to these sites amounts to more than 10 million visitors every month. He devised and produced the site at FFFBI.com, the Fin, Fur and Feather Bureau of Investigation and is also the creator of WGBH's broadband animated series The Greens. His writing for Between the Lions was Emmy-nominated in 2006. He is also currently the principal investigator and lead producer on a U.S. Department of Education Steppingstones of Technology grant, creating games to help kids with ADHD manage issues of organization and task completion.

Karen Sideman works for Games For Change as Director of Projects for PETLab, the organization’s prototype creation engine. She maintains a parallel career as a freelance interactive designer specializing in educational play, currently helping create climate change awareness and action materials for the Sally Ride Science Club and edgy flash games for This Is Pop. She has been involved in digital interactive design for about as long as there has been a field to be involved in, and could always be found at the most groundbreaking firms - such as Edwin Schlossberg, Inc. and R|GA Interactive – whenever the really interesting stuff was happening. She spent a good portion of the dot.com boom years as creative director of team that built Sesame Street Online.

David Thomas is a nationally syndicated videogame journalist, critic and teacher. He co-authored the Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual and regularly blogs about games at www.examiner.com. He teaches courses covering the history of digital media, videogame studies and a unique class that uses games to teach students about urban planning. His interest in virtual places and leisure spaces led his to study as a PhD student in the college of architecture and planning, where he focuses on the question of “What makes a place fun?” He can be found online at www.buzzcut.com

Christophe Watkins is Executive Producer at Artificial Mind and Movement, North America’s largest independent game developer. He’s responsible for business and corporate development as well as New Media convergence. Prior to AM&M, Mr Watkins was EVP of Business Development at Icarus Stuidos, a leading provider of MMOG and virtual world technologies/services and Co-Founder of Mforma (later renamed Hands-On Mobile) a global leader in the publishing and distribution of mobile entertainment, supporting over 50 wireless operators worldwide. Mr Watkins was also Director of Multimedia Publishing for France Telecom, Director of New Media for the Infogrames Group – now Atari, one of the world’s largest publishers and distributors of entertainment software and a television producer in France and New York.

Peggy Weil, Visiting Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at USC School of Cinematic Arts, is a digital media artist and designer focusing on interactive design as immersive experience for perceptual and civic engagement. She’s produced interactive work for The Voyager Company, Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Von Holtzbrinck and Ravensberger Interactive, awarded the MILIA D'OR in Cannes in 1998. Recipient of a New York Foundation of the Arts & WebLab grant to create The Blurring Test (www.mrmind.com) a bot who challenges you to convince him that you are human. Weil has consulted for The Getty Institute and The Dia Foundation; for the later Weil designed the original Roden Crater Website for artist James Turrell. She is currently designing and producing a comprehensive digital presence for Turrell and Skystone Foundation to launch coinciding with the crater opening in 2012. She worked as designer and producer on innovative games at USC’s Game Innovation Lab: ELECT for the Institute for Creative Technology and The Redistricting Game, for Annenberg Center. With Nonny de la Peña, she was awarded a residency in BAVC’s inaugural New Media Producer’s Institute for Gone Gitmo, an installation of Guantánamo Prison in Second Life. She is the recipient of a San Francisco Foundation 2008 commission to address how emerging technology impacts arts and arts organization's connection to new audiences.