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SPEAKER BIOS

Featured speakers include:

Joaquin Alvarado is the Founding Director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State University. In 2004 he began architecting the National Public Lightpath as a framework for public media, education and community leadership in the future of the Internet. In 2005 he formed San Francisco’s Digital Media Advisory Council and founded the Digital Sister Cities initiative to connect leading communities worldwide in common efforts to stimulate economic development, innovation and diversity. In 2008 he launched CoCo Studios to develop media collaboration and information platforms for fiber networks. In addition to his leadership role in education, Joaquín Alvarado is also an award winning writer, producer and director. His films have been featured in numerous film festivals, including the AFI Los Angeles International Film and the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.   Joaquin Alvarado is the author of Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art Volumes I & II, published by Bilingual Review Press. He is a contributing author in Teaching Ethnic Diversity With Film: Essays And Resources For Educators In History, Social Studies, Literature And Film Studies, published by Mcfarland & Co. The Silent Cross, for which he wrote the screenplay, is Joaquín Alvarado's first feature film as a director and made its debut at the Cine-Latino Film Festival in 2004.   Mr. Alvarado holds a B.A. in Chicano Studies from U.C. Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the UCLA School of Film, Television, and Digital Media. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Bay Area Video Coalition, the California Council for he Humanities, CineGrid, TechSoup Global, and Latino Public Broadcasting.

Steve Anderson Ph.D., directs the Ph.D. program in Media Arts & Practice at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. He is a scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of media, culture and technology. His research interests include the theory & history of emerging technologies, documentary and experimental film & video, and interactive media design. Anderson is also the associate editor of Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular, an online journal seeking to redefine scholarly research and publication in the digital age. He is currently completing a book and companion digital media project titled Technologies of History, which examines the construction of alternative histories in film, video and digital media. He is the Principle Investigator of Critical Commons, a fair use advocacy site and media resource supported by the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Initiative.

James Bachhuber is a designer, writer, and educator who consults on game-based learning projects for a number of organizations. As a member of the Tiltfactor Lab, he’s developed pedagogical tools as well as digital and urban games. Last year, he co-facilitated an after school program at Canarsie High School that taught teenagers serious game design and worked with participants to design the game Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City. His most recent Global Kids project involved developing the curriculum for an educational gaming after school program that is running in New York City and Boston.

Debra Baker, Senior Vice President, Operations, heads multiple departments for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) including marketing and PR, business development, first party operations, and business and legal affairs. She is responsible for terms of intellectual property acquisitions, film property and television licenses, talent deals, and production deals for the company as well as for strategic cross divisional initiatives on behalf of the division. High-profile projects executed during Debra’s tenure with WBIE include games based on the following Warner Bros.’ properties: Harry Potter, Matrix, Batman, and the 2008 hit titles, LEGO: Batman the Videogame and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Debra led the WBIE team which developed and deployed the PC LAN-based multi-player game, Pamoja Mtaani, into youth centers in Nairobi, Kenya, in partnership under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Before joining WBIE, she was Vice President of Business & Legal Affairs for Warner Bros. Corporate Business Development & Strategy after a role as Vice President of Business & Legal Affairs, General Counsel for Warner Bros. Studio Stores. Before coming to Warner Bros., Debra was a partner at Long & Levit, and she previously served as an associate attorney with Adams, Duque & Hazeltine and Rogers & Wells. She graduated from University of Minnesota Law School and received her B.A. from Gustavus Adolphus College. Debra was awarded the 2007 Media & Entertainment Counsel of the Year Award for Video and Online Games.

Ian Bogost is a videogame designer, critic, and researcher. He is an Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His research and writing considers videogames as an expressive medium, and his creative practice focuses on games about social and political issues. Bogost is author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism (MIT Press 2006), recently listed among “50 books for everyone in the game industry,” of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (MIT Press 2007), and co-author (with Nick Montfort) of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (MIT Press 2008). Bogost’s videogames about social and political issues cover topics as varied as airport security, disaffected workers, the petroleum industry, suburban errands, and tort reform. His games have been played by millions of people and exhibited internationally.

Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager/SVP, Maxis - She tells her kids that when she was young, she had to walk an 8 mile paper route through the harsh winter conditions of her home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Even at the young age of 10, she proved herself to have enough strength, focus, and creativity to get a difficult job done. These same qualities have helped her achieve success in her present position at Maxis. As executive producer of The Sims 2, the fastest selling PC game of all time, Lucy oversaw the overall game design and played a major role in its unprecedented success. She encourages people to express creativity and enables ownership to the teams. Her experience at Activision, Lucas Arts, and Electronic Arts served as a launching pad when Lucy decided to join Maxis after it was acquired by EA in 1997. Prior to working in the games industry, Lucy received a BA in psychology from the University of Michigan. She originally began working on SimCity 3000 and then worked on The Sims, SimCity 4, and The Sims 2. She is currently running the critically-acclaimed Spore franchise, including Spore Galactic Adventures, Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena, all of which will release in 2009.

Alison Bryant is Senior Research Director of Brand & Consumer Insights and Digital Analytics for the Nickelodeon/MTV Networks Kids & Family Group. She leads Nick’s efforts to understand the digital lives of kids and families, conducting research on a variety of digital platforms (online, console and handheld gaming, interactive television, mobile), and manages research for the magazine group. Her Ph.D. is from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California and before joining Nickelodeon she was an assistant professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University. She has published and presented extensively on media, kids and families, including two edited books – The Children's Television Community and Television and the American Family (2nd Ed) – and is associate editor for the Journal of Children & Media.

Laura Callanan joined the Social Sector Office of McKinsey & Co in July 2008 as a member of the Philanthropy Practice. Laura supports foundation and nonprofit clients, and leads research focused on social investing and social impact measurement. Prior to joining McKinsey, Laura was an independent consultant working with The Synergos Institute, a non-profit organization addressing global poverty and social injustice and E-Line Ventures, a double bottom line investment fund focused on video games with social impact. Laura served as Senior Adviser at the United Nations Development Programme in the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery where she was responsible for resource mobilization and external communications, and served as chief of staff. As Executive Director of The Prospect Hill Foundation, Laura led all aspects of the Foundation’s strategy development, board relations, and operations. The Prospect Hill Foundation’s grant making is primarily in the areas of environmental conservation, reproductive health and rights, and nuclear non-proliferation. As Associate Director at The Rockefeller Foundation, Laura had general management responsibility for all activities related to the $3 billion endowment, and investment responsibility for the Foundation’s venture capital and private equity portfolio. Laura was also a member of the Foundation’s Program Venture Experiment (ProVenEx) commitment committee and oversaw investment decisions for program-related investments and similar public-private activities. Prior to joining Rockefeller, Laura was Associate Treasurer for the Wallace Foundation. After graduating from Columbia University with a Master of Public Administration degree, she worked in public finance investment banking serving university endowments and other non-profit organizations on behalf of Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan and Moody’s Investors Service. Laura’s undergraduate degree is from Barnard College of Columbia University. Laura is currently a member of the Audit Committee for the International Women’s Health Coalition, and an advisory board member for E-Line Ventures. She is a past member of the board of directors of Signature Theater Company, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Rhizome.org. Laura was a founding investment committee member and audit committee member for the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

N'Gai Croal is a videogame design consultant. Previously, he was a senior writer for technology at Newsweek, where he had written about technology since he joined Newsweek in February of 1995. In September of 2006, N'Gai launched a videogame blog for Newsweek called "Level Up" that quickly became an industry must-read. In addition to his work in the game industry, N'Gai currently writes a monthly column for the renowned U.K. gaming magazine Edge called "Playing In the Dark." He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Linda Wright DeAguero currently serves as the Associate Director for Prevention Science with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Global AIDS Program (GAP), National Center for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, STD, and TB Prevention, where she focuses on the improving the quality of program operations, implementation, and effectiveness. She has extensive experience in research, program evaluation and the provision of technical assistance focused on public health, HIV/AIDS, social and environmental factors that influence health and wellbeing, and the interrelationships of health and socioeconomic issues. She has worked extensively both domestically and internationally to research and develop strategies and activities aimed at changing behaviors and/or influencing public health policies and practices to prevent HIV/STD transmission and unintended pregnancy.   Prior to joining GAP, Dr. Wright-De Agüero served as Chief of the Program Evaluation Research Branch, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at CDC. She oversaw the HIV counseling and testing reporting system, the development of prevention program performance indicators and was responsible for developing the evaluation approach and implementing studies to assess the effectiveness of CDC-funded HIV prevention programs delivered by health departments and community-based organizations.

Sean Duncan is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and member of the Games+Learning+Society Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work involves understanding the productive learning practices present within online communities around videogames, focusing on the ways that these spaces may help us to understand the role of design in learning. His research interests also include understanding the ways that fan communities around media can serve as models for social engagement, pedagogy for fostering digital media literacy, and the social implications of videogames. He was previously a usability intern at Microsoft Corporation, and a University instructor in psychology, interactive media studies, and interdisciplinary studies. His personal website and blog are at http://se4n.org.

Mary Flanagan is the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College. Her current Tiltfactor projects include work in education and games, design processes and methods, and game literacy. With funding from Microsoft, the Design for Learning group is focused on determining those specific design aspects of games which allow for good learning in games. Our Values at Play project investigates how designers can be more intentional about the ways in which they integrate human values into their game-based systems. The lab created and tested a values based college curriculum, the Grow-A-Game brainstorming tool, and develops novel games which integrates values. The lab's most recent digital game LAYOFF attracted over 1 million players in its first week of release and educated players about the financial crisis. The lab's current board game VEXATA helps middle school students learn to “read” game mechanics and develop a game literacy. Finallly, the lab's forthcoming urban game, PHOTOPOLIS (with Parsons) explores how players can envision and document how human values manifest in everyday life across cultures, and it will launch with players in New York, Beijing, and Shanghai.

Tracy Fullerton, M.F.A., is a game designer, educator and writer with fifteen years of professional experience. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Interactive Media Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she is Director of the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab and holder of the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair in Interactive Entertainment. Tracy is the author of Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, a design textbook in use at game programs worldwide. Recent credits include faculty advisor for the award-winning student games Cloud, flOw, Darfur is Dying and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, and game designer for The Night Journey a unique game/art project with artist Bill Viola. Prior to joining USC, she was president and founder of the interactive television game developer, Spiderdance, Inc. Spiderdance’s games included NBC’s Weakest Link, MTV’s webRIOT, The WB’s No Boundaries, History Channel’s History IQ, Sony Game Show Network’s Inquizition and TBS’s Cyber Bond. Before starting Spiderdance, Tracy was a founding member of the New York design firm R/GA Interactive, Creative Director at the interactive film studio Interfilm and a designer at Robert Abel’s early interactive company Synapse. Notable projects include Sony’s Multiplayer Jeopardy! and Multiplayer Wheel of Fortune and MSN’s NetWits, the first multiplayer casual game. Tracy’s work has received numerous industry honors including an Emmy nomination for interactive television and Time Magazine’s Best of the Web.

Ivan Alex Games is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA and a member of the Games, Learning and Society Group. He holds an M.Sc. in Educational Technology, a B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering, and has extensive experience working in research and development within the fields of technology and educational technology within corporate and academic settings. His current research concentrates on the pedagogical use of games and game design to promote the mindset and literacy skills learners need in the 21st century. His work has appeared in E-Learning, Educational Technology Magazine, Games and Culture, and the Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences. He has been a presenter at the Game Developer's Conference.

James Paul Gee received his Ph.D in linguistics from Stanford University in 1975. He started his career in theoretical linguistics, working in syntactic and semantic theory, and taught initially in the School of Language and Communication at Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts. He went on to do research in psycholinguistics at Northeastern University in Boston and at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Holland. As his research focus began to switch to studies on discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and applications of linguistics to literacy and education, he took a position in the School of Education at Boston University, where he was the chair of the Department of Developmental Studies and Counseling. From Boston University, he went on to serve as a professor of linguistics in the Linguistics Department at the University of Southern California and, later, served as the first Jacob Hiatt Professor of Education in the Hiatt Center for Urban Education at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1998, he became the Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 2007 he became the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at the Arizona State University. He is a member of the National Academy of Education. His book Sociolinguistics and Literacies (1990) was one of the founding documents in the formation of the “New Literacies 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) 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) offers 36 reasons why good video games produce better learning conditions than many of today’s schools. 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 new book, Good Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays (2007) situates game-like learning in the framework of current research in the Learning Sciences. Prof. Gee has published widely in journals in linguistics, psychology, the social sciences, and education. In 1989, the Journal of Education, one of the longest running journals in education in the United States, published a special issue devoted to reprinting his early essays on literacy. His books include Sociolinguistics and Literacies (1990, Second Edition 1996; Third Edition 2007); The Social Mind (1992); Introduction to Human Language (1993); The New Work Order: Behind the Language of the New Capitalism (1996, with Glynda Hull and Colin Lankshear); An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method (1999; Second Edition 2003); What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003); Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling (2004), and Why Video Games Are Good for Your Soul (2005); and Good Learning and Good Video Games (2007)

Alan Gershenfeld has spent the last twenty years at the intersection of entertainment, technology and social entrepreneurship. He is currently President and Founder of E-Line Ventures, a publisher of digital entertainment that engages and empowers – with a core focus on computer/video games and webcomics/graphic novels. Prior to E-Line, Alan was CEO of netomat, a leader in mobile-web community solutions. netomat originated as network-based art project and was selected as a Technology Pioneer at the 2007 World Economic Forum at Davos. Before netomat, Alan was member of the executive management team that rebuilt Activision from bankruptcy into a profitable industry leader with more than a billion dollars in revenue. 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. Before joining Activision, Alan spent nearly ten years in the film industry where he worked in a variety of development, production and post-production positions with credits on numerous feature film and documentaries. Alan currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Games for Change. He also serves on the Board of Directors of FilmAid International and on the Advisory Boards of Creative Capital, SplashLife, Global Kids, We Are Family Foundation and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center For Educational Media and Research (Sesame Workshop).

Sam Gilbert is a researcher on the GoodPlay Project, a study at the Harvard Graduate School of Education led by Howard Gardner that seeks to understand the ethical dimensions of young people’s online activities. In conjunction with GoodPlay, he also works with a group of Boston-area researchers and game designers to explore how videogames can address ethical issues and create meaningful experiences. He graduated from Harvard University in 2007 with an BA in social studies and plans to pursue graduate study in the social sciences.

Jessica Goldfin is a Journalism Program Associate at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. She is currently pursuing her M.A. in Communication Studies at the University of Miami.

Judith Helfand Filmmaker, activist and educator, Judith Helfand is best known for her ability to take the dark, cynical worlds of chemical exposure, heedless corporate behavior, and environmental injustice and make them personal, resonant and entertaining. Films include: Uprising of 34 (Co-director/George Stoney), the Sundance-award-winning, twice Emmy nominated Blue Vinyl (Co-director/Daniel B. Gold), and its Peabody-award-winning prequel A Healthy Baby Girl (a five-year video-diary about her experience with DES related cancer) and Everything's Cool (Co-director/Daniel Gold). Their distribution and national broadcasts on PBS/POV, HBO and the Sundance Channel have all been coordinated around grassroots engagement campaigns. Helfand received a 2007 USA artists grant, one of fifty awarded to America's finest living artists. She's taught documentary at NYU's School of Undergraduate Film and Television, New School University and is Filmmaker-in-Residence at University of Wisconsin's Nelson Institute in Madison where she teaches environmental documentary making to environmental scientists and community engagement through film and film festivals. She's Co-founder, Director of Strategic and Creative Development of both Working Films, a leader in linking non-fiction filmmaking to on-the-ground activism and Chicken & Egg Pictures, a film fund and non-profit production company that supports women filmmakers with money matched by hands-with creative mentorship and executive producing. She is currently in production on her next film, COOKED.

Henry Jenkins is the Co-Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of twelve books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture, The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, and From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. Jenkins writes regularly about media and cultural change at his blog, henryjenkins.org. He is one of the principal investigators for The Education Arcade, a consortium of educators and business leaders working to promote the educational use of computer and video games and of the Knight Center for Future Civic Media, a joint effort with the MIT Media Lab to use new media to enhance how people live in local communities. He is one of the principle investigators for GAMBIT, a lab focused on promoting experimentation through game design, and of Project nml, a MacArthur Foundation funded project that develops curricular materials focused on promoting the social skills and cultural competencies needed to become a full participant in the new media era. Jenkins has a MA in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa and a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Barry Joseph, Director of the Online Leadership Program, 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, the application of social networks for social good and the educational potential of virtual worlds like Second Life, combining youth development practices with the development of high profile digital media projects that develop 21st Century Skills and New Media Literacies. He has also worked with GK's development program to secure funding from the Motorola Foundation, Time-Warner Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, the MacArthur Foundation, AMD, and the Microsoft Corporation, amongst others.   Barry served on the steering committee of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative and his writing appeared in the Foundation's Ecology of Games volume in 2007. Barry has been invited to present at the University of Wisconsin's Games, Learning and Society Conference, M.I.T.'s Educational Arcade, the annual Games For Change conference, at the United Nations, and at Microsoft's Wide World Summit, amongst others. His projects and views have appeared in the New York Times, CNN, Marie Claire, BusinessWeek, The Voice of America, and through press in Russia and Japan. During his time at Global Kids, Barry has also found time to successfully launch two non-profits, Games For Change and a second working for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and is currently working to advance the emerging communities of both games-based learning and learning through virtual worlds. More information can be found at olp.globalkids.org, youtube.com/holymeatballs, and RezEd.org.

Joseph Kahne, the Abbie Valley Professor of Education, is Dean of the School of Education and Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group at Mills College. Kahne publishes regularly in leading journals on the democratic purposes of education and on urban school reform. His scholarship has received several awards including outstanding paper of the year awards from the American Educational Research Association, the American Political Science Association Division of Teaching and Learning, and the Research in Social Studies special interest group. He just completed a major study of small school reform in Chicago. Currently, he is leading a longitudinal study of youth throughout California that focuses on their civic capacities and commitments and on the ways schools and participation with digital media influence adolescents' civic and political development. This work is funded by the MacArthur Foundation and by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Education. For more details, please see: www.civicsurvey.org")

Sharon Knight has spent the past 6 years working for Electronic Arts in both corporate finance and operations in North America and the UK, where she was involved in promoting Women in Gaming as a speaker and mentor. Most recently, Sharon was Senior Vice President for Central Development Services, which provides integrated development solutions in the areas of global localization, quality assurance, motion capture, art, and mastering to EA's studios worldwide. She also oversaw first party relations with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo with regards to product quality. While at EA, Sharon gained considerable experience with captive shared service and outsourced solutions in emerging markets. Prior to EA, Sharon held senior management positions in finance with Gap Inc. and KFC; she started her career in commercial banking in Chicago. Knight has a BA from Smith College and an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The Times since 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who writes op-ed columns that appear twice a week. After joining The New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics, he served as a Times correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. In 1990 Mr. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, then also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer in 2006, for commentary for what the judges called "his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world." In his column, Mr. Kristof was an early opponent of the Iraq war, and among the first to raise doubts about WMD in Iraq. His columns have often focused on global health, poverty and gender issues in the developing world. Mr. Kristof has taken a special interest in Web journalism and was the first blogger on The New York Times Web site; he also twitters and has a Facebook fan page and a channel on YouTube. Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are authors of "China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power" and "Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia." Their next book, "Half the Sky: From Oppression to Opportunity for Women Worldwide," will be published in September.

Delia Lang is an Assistant Research Professor at Emory University in the Rollins School of Public Health, the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education. Dr. Lang’s background at the doctoral level is in clinical psychology. She also holds two masters degrees, one in experimental psychology and one in biostatistics. Her research experience is in the area of HIV/AIDS prevention among adolescents with mental illness, disadvantaged women and commercial sex workers. Dr. Lang’s focus is on the intersection of gender based violence and HIV acquisition as well as psychosocial factors associated with HIV. Dr. Lang has been involved in several randomized controlled trials and program evaluation projects internationally including Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, South Africa, Eastern Africa and Armenia. Her research expertise is in research methodology as well as data management and analysis of longitudinal data. In addition to her research, Dr. Lang teaches in the Behavioral Sciences and Health Education department at Emory University and has also taught internationally as a visiting professor. Courses taught by Dr. Lang include Adolescent Health, Theories of Health Education and Behavior, Applied Quantitative Analysis, Survey Methods, and Grant Proposal Writing. Dr. Lang is an author and co-author on multiple peer reviewed journal articles as well as presentations at professional meetings. Outside her academic work, Dr. Lang is also involved in part time clinical practice employing state of the art virtual reality environments to treat post traumatic stress disorders and other anxiety disorders.

David Langendoen is a game designer and partner at Electric Funstuff. Founded in 1998, EFS specializes in taking game design principles and applying them to a broad range of experiences, including products with educational outcomes and transmedia applications (how can a book interact with a website in a fun way?).   EFS was the lead designer for Scholastic's ReadAbout reading comprehension program, Scholastic's 39 Clues transmedia franchise, and most recently, Mission America, an adventure-style game series to teach American History in middle school (in partnership with Channel 13/WNET as part of the American History & Civics Initiative funded by CPB).

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. Before starting area/code, Frank was the director of game design at Gamelab, and worked as a game designer for POP&Co. For over 10 years, Frank has taught game design at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, the School of Visual Arts, and the New School. He is currently the director of the NYU Game Center. His writings on games, technology and culture have appeared in a variety of publications.

Michael Levine, Executive Director, Joan Ganz Cooney Center. Dr. 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.

Colleen Macklin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Design and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City and Director of PETLab (Prototyping Evaluation, Teaching and Learning lab), a joint project of Games for Change and Parsons, supported by funding from the MacArthur Foundation, focused on developing new games, simulations, and play experiences which encourage experimental learning and investigation into social and global issues. Projects range from a curriculum in game design for the Boys and Girls Club to big games such as Re:Activism and the sport Budgetball. In addition to work in social games and interactive media, her research focuses on the social aspects of design and prototyping process. In this vein, she is working with the Social Science Research Council on a prototyping approach to creating innovative learning spaces with youth, public schools and cultural institutions, with funding through the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative. University Forum member, Nokia and India China Institute Fellow (2006-2007). Interactive work shown at Come Out and Play, SoundLab, The Whitney Museum for American Art and Creative Time. BFA, Media Arts Pratt Institute, graduate studies in Computer Science, CUNY and International Affairs, The New School.

John Martin believes that good learning can be playful and fun, and still be maddeningly hard. He's come to understand this through his own experiences role-playing as a doctoral student at UW-Madison's Department of Curriculum and Instruction. His research there examines video game design as an artifact that can disseminate the attitudes and values of a community of practice. His dissertation attempts to marry environmental education with the popular medium of video games through the presentation of a case study on the effects of designing and playing place-based augmented reality games on handhelds (ARGHs) as a way of structuring outdoor experiences at a woods camp. He hopes to level up soon.

John Nordlinger has a Philosophy degree from Northeastern University. Now at Microsoft Research (MSR); John addresses enhancing Computer Science (CS) with gaming themes.   He produces The Microsoft Research (MSR) gaming kit, manages an initiative on gaming in CS, and works on related assets and events. John has co-authored three papers at ACM SIGCSE 08. John has written, directed and produced his first short film ""Allegory of the Game"" a MMORPG interpretation to Plato's ""Allegory of the Cave"" http://gallery.mac.com/johnnord#gallery ; which was selected at the 2008 Chicago Short Film Festival. Also John is co-editing a new book WoW and Philosophy - Wrath of the Philosopher King and contributed to Karen Schrier’s Ethics and Game Design Compendium.")

Grace Osewe currently serves as Project Manager and lead on behavior change communication for the Pamoja Mtaani Videogame at the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. She is responsible for overall day-to-day management of the project and coordination of implementation partners, technical Advisory Groups (Behavior Change Communication and Monitoring and Evaluation) and other key stakeholders. Ms. Osewe also provides technical expertise and policy guidance in the development of culturally appropriate storylines for game themes and integration of behavior change concepts. Prior to joining PEPFAR, Ms. Osewe was coordinator of the Modeling and Reinforcement to Combat HIV/AIDS (MARCH) program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Global AIDS Program (GAP) in Zimbabwe. She was actively involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of programs designed to assist youth in moving beyond awareness of HIV/AIDS to adopt HIV safe behaviors, including Mopani Junction, a long running radio serial drama. Ms. Osewe received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and her Masters in Business Administration at the University of Texas in Austin.

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.

Ian Rowe is a Deputy Director at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on the strategy to achieve large-scale improvements in college completion rates, especially with low-income young adults. He is formerly the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Public Affairs for MTV, where he oversaw MTV’s ‘pro-social' multi-media campaigns to engage, educate and empower millions of young people to take action on some of the greatest issues facing their generation, including climate change, voting and civic engagement, sexual health, education, and global disease and poverty. Prior to the Gates Foundation and MTV, he was the White House Director of Strategy and Performance Measurement for USA Freedom Corps, the President's initiative on volunteer service created to encourage every American to make a lifetime commitment of at least two years in service to others. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner, an Echoing Green Fellow, a Harvard Social Enterprise Fellow and was also founder and president of Third Millennium Media, a media consulting business. He spent two years with Teach for America, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a degree in Computer Science Engineering from Cornell University.

Susana Ruiz is a media practitioner whose research interests include the intersections between art, journalism, game design, computation, ethics and cinema. Susana developed Darfur Is Dying in partnership with mtvU, a game for social change, which received critical acclaim from experts, won numerous awards, and helped garner the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ prestigious Governors Award. The game was said to be one of the best presentations of life in Darfur by Pulitzer Prize winner New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and was presented to members of the U.S. Congress. Her follow-up game project entitled RePlay: Finding Zoe was a co-development with The Metropolitan Action Committee On Violence Against Women and Children and addressed gender stereotyping and dating abuse. It won the Ashoka Changemakers global competition Why Games Matter: A Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care, as well as the Adobe/Techsoup Show Your Impact competition. Susana received a BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, an MFA from the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division, and is currently a PhD student at USC’s Media Arts + Practice Program. She is the co-founder of the design collective Take Action Games, which seeks to address critical social issues with an approach that prioritizes subject-matter research and player affect. In The Balance, her current project, is a multi-platform documentary project dealing with the U.S. Justice system and prison industrial complex.

Katie Salen is Associate Professor of Design and Technology, and Director of the Center for Transformative Media at Parsons the New School for Design. She also runs a non-profit called the Institute of Play that is focused on games and learning, and is co-editor of the International Journal of Learning and Media. Katie is co-author of Rules of Play, a textbook on game design, The Game Design Reader, and editor of The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning, all from MIT Press. Katie worked as an animator on Richard Linklater’s critically acclaimed animated feature “Waking Life,” and co-developed “Karaoke Ice,” an ice-cream truck turned mobile karaoke unit deployed to collect and curate idiosyncratic performances of tinkle-pop songs. She designs big games, slow games, and game-like experiences for audiences of all types. Currently Katie is hard at work on Quest to Learn, a new 6-12th grade public school that will open in New York City in fall 2009. The school uses a game-based learning model and will supports students within an inquiry-based curriculum with questing to learn at its core. She is collaborating with David Birchfield and Mina Glenberg-Johnson at ASU on the design of math, science, and wellness-based games for a mixed reality platform known as SMALLab (supported by MacArthur and Intel), and her non-profit has support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to design an online social network focused on health and wellness for middle school students called Being Me. Katie was lead designer on Gamestar Mechanic with Greg Trefry, and is finishing up work on an online strategy guide and curricular toolkit for the game, with her team at the Institute of Play.

Seth Schiesel writes about video games for the Culture sections of The New York Times. He joined The Times in 1996 as a business reporter covering the telecommunications industry and in 2000 became the lead reporter on global media companies. He became a technology feature writer in 2003 and was invited to the Culture department in 2005.   Before joining The Times, he was an editorial page writer at The Boston Globe.   He is a graduate of Phillips Academy and Yale College. He grew up in Woodstock, N.Y.

Karen Schrier is a media producer, educator, researcher, and writer. She is currently an executive producer at Scholastic, where she spearheads research and digital media projects. She is also a doctoral student at Columbia University and an adjunct professor at Parsons. Karen is the Games Papers co-chair of SIGGRAPH 2009 and is developing and editing a two-volume collection, “Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values through Play,” to be published in 2010. She has a master's degree from MIT and a bachelor's degree from Amherst College.

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.

John Sharp is an interaction designer, graphic designer and educator. He has been involved in art and design for over twenty years in a variety of media: interaction design, games, print, motion graphics, and radio & club DJing. Today, John is a professor in the Interactive Design & Game Development department and the Art History department at the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta. John is also a partner in Supercosm, where he helps clients entertain, educate and organize interactive experiences. His work has been recognized by ID Magazine, the Art Director's Club and the Webby Awards.

Karen Sideman is the Project Director at Games for Change. She is an interactive and game designer with a specialization in educational play. She has been in this field for about as long as it has existed, and has been a participant in some groundbreaking projects and firms, including Edwin Schlossberg, Inc. and R|GA Interactive – often as a charter member, and always when the most interesting work was being done. She was also Creative Director of Sesame Workshop Online and led the team that built the deep, fascinating web presence for Sesame Street that continues to delight families today. In addition to Games For Change, Karen works with Sally Ride Science, making inspirational and informative materials for middle school girls interested in science and technology; and with This Is Pop; making edgy casual games.

Kurt Squire is an associate professor of educational communications and technology at the university of wisconsin-madison. He is the author of over 50 scholarly works and current co-director of the games, learning, and society initiative.

Constance Steinkuehler is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Communication & Technology program in the Curriculum & Instruction department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research is on cognition, learning and literacy in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). Current interests include “pop cosmopolitanism” in online worlds and the intellectual practices that underwrite such a disposition, including collective problem solving, digital & print literacy, informal scientific reasoning, computational literacy, and reciprocal apprenticeship. Her work is funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

Spencer Stephens has been working as a technologist for Warner Bros. responsible for technology development and application across a broad range of digital content distribution and production systems since 2002. In 2008 Stephens was named to the newly created position of Vice-President Production Technology, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. In this position, he is responsible for overseeing the creation, evaluation and implementation of cutting-edge technologies to create new digital infrastructures, procedures and workflows that will facilitate the production needs of the Studio’s motion picture and television productions. He has a leadership role in overseeing the Warner Bros. Entertainment Group’s ongoing support of PEPFAR (The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). Stephens brings over 25 years experience in technology and management to Warner Bros. Starting in data communications as system engineer at the inception of the computer network industry he has focused on the design and the innovative application of network systems. He has a BSc (1st Class Honors) in physics from the University of Sussex, UK and an MS in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Benjamin Stokes is an education program officer at the MacArthur Foundation. His focus is on the $50 million “Digital Media and Learning” initiative launched in 2006 to help determine how digital media is changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Previously, Benjamin Stokes co-founded Games for Change, the central organization advancing games media for positive social change. Benjamin also worked at NetAid/Mercy Corps as an E-Learning Architect, training high school students to reach 150,000 of their peers in the fight on global poverty.

Arlene de Strulle is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings where she is engaged in furthering NSF’s current and future investment in Cyberlearning. Arlene is the Chair of the Education Directorate’s Cyberlearning Work Group, and serves on a number of other cross-NSF cyberinfrasture for education committees and task forces that assess games and other immersive technologies for learning, and manages several NSF Program areas, such as: the Learning Technologies section in the Informal Science Education (ISE) Program; the Cyber-enabled Discovery & Innovation (CDI) Program; and the Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT) Program. Dr. de Strulle also conducts research with the Department of Defense investigating the transferability of the military’s game-based education and training programs to science education. Dr. de Strulle’s research on learning with Virtual Reality will be published in a book on virtual worlds in Spring, 2009.

Clive Thompson is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, and Fast Company. He writes a video-game column for Wired News, and is a former Knight Science Journalism Fellow.

Emily Verellen is the Senior Program Officer at The Fledgling Fund. She joined the Fledgling Fund in 2008. Emily provides strategic communications and expanded outreach support for the Creative Media Initiative. Emily is the co-founder of The Binti Pamoja Center, a women's rights and reproductive health center in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2006, she received a grant from The Fledgling Fund to publish a book about The Binti Pamoja Center, "LightBox", which features photographs, stories and autobiographies from the teenage members of the Center. All of the funds earned through the sales of LightBox support The Binti Pamoja Center Scholarship Fund. Emily graduated from American University with a BA in International Development, Anthropology and Communications and from the London School of Economics with an MA in International Development and Population Studies.

Hsing Wei is a Reblogger and News Editor for Games for Change. Her work has spanned from strategy consulting, to venture philanthropy, and media production. Outside of G4C, she continues to develop and manage the research and design of innovation projects for a range of for-profit and non-profit clients. Her most recent research focuses on collaborative, interactive media. Hsing received a Bachelors of Science from the University of Pennsylvania and Masters from Harvard University.

Omar Wasow is currently pursuing a Doctorate in African American studies and Government at Harvard. His research focuses on race and politics, particularly in relation to education and crime. In addition, Omar is the co-founder and strategic advisor to BlackPlanet.com, a social network he helped grow to over three million users a month. Omar also works to demystify technology through regular TV and radio segments on shows like NBC's Today and the Tavis Smiley show. Similarly, Omar tutored Oprah Winfrey in her first exploration of the Net in the 12-part series Oprah Goes Online. In 2003, he helped found a K-8 charter school in Brooklyn. He is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellowship. He received his B.A. in Race and Ethnic Relations from Stanford University. He can be reached at owasow@gmail.com

Moses Wolfenstein is a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He holds an MA in educational administration from Teachers College, Columbia University where he did mixed methods research and policy analysis on the New York Department of Education’s district level suspension system. While in New York he also studied conflict resolution at the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR), leading him to focus on the place schools hold within larger social systems, and the various factors creating intractable conflicts at school and district levels. Since his arrival at UW in 2006, Moses has been working with his advisor Richard Halverson on School Leadership Games including Teaching Evaluation, a game based tool designed to help school leaders develop an eye for classroom practice, and on the development of semantic templates for designing digital interactive cases for school leadership. His dissertation work focuses on analyzing the practices of guild leaders in MMOs so as to better understand what these game spaces can tell us about leadership as a disposition. Moses also works with the ADL Academic Co-Lab in their partnership with Florida Virtual School researching and designing next generation on-line courses.

Eric Zimmerman is a game designer, entrepreneur, author, and academic who has been working in the game industry for 15 years. For nine years, Eric was the Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer of Gamelab, a game development company based in New York City that was named one of 5 "Rising Star" design firms by HOW Magazine. Gamelab's games, which include the casual game blockbuster hit Diner Dash, have won awards from the Independent Games Festival, Games for Change, ID Magazine, Art Directors Club, ARS Electronica, as well as finalist nominations in the Webby Awards, the IGDA Developers Choice Awards, and the Zeebys casual game awards. Founded in 2000, Gamelab created innovative games for broad audiences, including singleplayer and multiplayer online games, as well as games in other media both on and off the computer. Gamelab worked with partners including LEGO, HBO, VH-1, Nickelodeon, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Disney, Mattel, PlayFirst, PBS, Fisher-Price, Leapfrog, and many, many others. Gamelab spun off two successful companies, including Gamestar Mechanic, an online site that was funded by the MacArthur Foundation that lets kids create games. Gamelab also helped create the Institute of Play, a nonprofit headed by Katie Salen that looks at the intersection of games and learning and is currently launching a school in New York City based on play as the model for learning. Eric's game design work prior to Gamelab includes the critically acclaimed SiSSYFiGHT 2000 as well as the PC games Gearheads and The Robot Club. He sits on the boards of Games for Change and The Institute of Play and the Advisory for Digital Media for Global Kids. Eric lectures and publishes extensively on games. He is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, the definitive textbook on game design (MIT Press, 2004). He is also the co-editor with Katie Salen of The Game Design Reader (MIT Press, 2006) and co-editor with Amy Scholder of RE:PLAY - Game Design and Game Culture (Peter Lang Press, 2003). Eric has taught courses at MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Parsons School of Design's MFA in Digital Technologies Program, and School of Visual Arts' Design as Author MFA Program.

Participating organizations:
Warner Brothers
National Geographic
MIT
Harvard
The United Nations
Participant Productions
Center for Disease Control
USAID

If you’d like to sponsor the festival, please email: events@gamesforchange.org