The Well Played Editors and Editorial Advisory board is comprised of industry professionals, academics, and media professionals. The Advisory work with the Editors to review submissions for the Well Played journal, books, and singles as well as sharing topics and guest editing special issues and events for Well Played.
Well Played Editors
Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories and transformational experiences across texts, comics, games and other media. He explores the art, design, and science of making media that matters, working to expand our notions of what media are capable of doing, and what we are capable of doing with media. He is an expert in leading creative collaborations with interdisciplinary groups, orchestrating change, and building initiatives focused on making positive social impact. He is a Teaching Professor at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Play Story Press, an open community publishing consortium, and the Well Played series and journal.
Ira Fay is a Learning Game Designer in The Education Arcade at MIT, an Affiliated Scholar at Hampshire College, and CEO of Fay Games, a studio primarily focused on games for educational impact. From 2013 – 2020, Ira was an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Game Design at Hampshire College, where he founded their game design and development program, which Princeton Review consistently rated in the Top 10 undergraduate programs in the US. Prior to his academic career, Ira was a Senior Game Designer at Electronic Arts (Pogo.com), and before that, he worked at Z-Axis (Activision) on X-Men 3, Maxis on The Sims 2, and Walt Disney Imagineering on ToonTown Online. Ira graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and master’s degrees in information systems management and entertainment technology. He is also a published puzzle designer and board game designer, writing a regular puzzle column in the board game magazine Senet and having co-designed expansions for Agricola, Xia: Legends of a Drift System, arcade mode in Sleeping Gods: Tides of Ruin, and Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread.
Clara Fernández-Vara is a media scholar, and a game designer and writer. Her work focuses on narrative design, both as her professional practice and in her academic work, as well as videogame history. Clara’s videogame work is grounded in the humanities, informed by her background in literature, film and theatre, which she brings to digital technologies. She has presented her work internationally, including conferences such as the Game Developers Conference, Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), Electronic Literature Conference , the International Conference on Games and Narrative, Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference, and Replaying Japan. She has worked on commercial games for Warner Bros., Die Gute Fabrik, the Spanish National Ballet, and Big Fish Games among others. Her book, Introduction to Game Analysis, is now on its third edition.
Currently: curating content, advocating for gamers and game developers, discovering new experiences!
Previously: teaching game design, theory, interactive arts; research on playable theater; writing and creative projects. Running a research center at UC Santa Cruz focused on exploring the intersection of art and technology: the Center for Games and Playable Media. Manage growth strategy, build corporate relations, enhance curriculum.
Previously: business development at a large independent game development studio.
Previously: put on game conferences at CMP; used to work on internet media (internet show about videogames – that was fun.)
Played in a band; still blog once in a while at gamegirladvance.com. Play games, write, read, make music, plot to take over the world, etc.
Specialties: New media, interactive media, internet video, videogames, blogging, broadcast and podcast. Writing fiction. Clarion 2017 graduate.
John Sharp is the Professor of Games and Learning in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design. His research focuses on game and play aesthetics, pedagogies of creative practice, and the intersections of ethics and aesthetics. John is a member of the game design collective Local No. 12, creators of Dear Reader (2019), The Metagame (2010-15), and Backchatter (2009). John is the author of Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Game and Art (2015), and the co-author of Games, Design and Play: A Detailed Approach to Iterative Game Design (2016) with Colleen Macklin; Fun, Taste, & Games: An Aesthetics for the Idle, Unproductive, and Otherwise Playful (2019) with David Thomas; and Iterate: Ten Perspectives on Creativity and Failure (2019) with Colleen Macklin. John has curated a number of game- and play-centered exhibitions including “Spacewar!: Videogames Blast Off” (2012) and “A Whole New Ball Game: Playing through 60 Years of Sports Video Games” (2018) at the Museum of the Moving Image, co-curator of “XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design” at the Museum of Design-Atlanta (2013), and co-curator of “Shall Make, Shall Be: The Bill of Rights at Play” (2022).
Well Played Editorial Advisory Board
Derek A. Burrill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of Die Tryin’: Videogames, Masculinity, Culture (2008) and The Other Guy: Media Masculinity Within the Margins (2014), as well as essays in a variety of journals and anthologies. He currently sits in the editorial board of Games & Culture.
Sean Duncan is an Assistant Professor, General Faculty in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. His recent research and teaching have focused on analog games, media adaptation, comics and sequential art, and film.
Elisa Gopin is an educational game designer with a passion for STEM education. As founder of the educational multimedia development company Lifelong-Learner.com she works on projects that promote creativity and problem solving skills, and teaches online courses that train teachers in the use of Web 2.0 tools in education, digital storytelling, and games in the classroom. Elisa was the driving force behind the development of BackPackGames.com, a website that provides quality educational games categorized by academic content, cognitive skill, grade level, and educational standards. Prior to entering the field of Edtech she worked as a project manager in web development for over 10 years. She is currently a doctoral candidate in educational technology at Boise State University where her research focuses on the challenge of integrating gameplay mechanics with educational content to create a truly intrinsic learning experience.
Katherine Isbister is Professor of Computational Media and Jack Baskin Endowed Chair in Engineering at University of California Santa Cruz, where she directs the Social Emotional Technology Lab https://setlab.ucsc.edu/. Her research team creates interactive experiences at the intersection of HCI and Games/Play to heighten social and emotional connections and wellbeing, with over 150 peer-reviewed publications. Their research-through-design practice often includes elements of games and play. Industry support includes Intel, Google, Mozilla, and others, with federal support from NSF and NIH. Isbister is a recipient of MIT Technology Review’s Young Innovator Award, and is an ACM Distinguished Scientist. http://www.katherineinterface.com/
Stephen Jacobs is a Professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media at RIT. He is a faculty affiliate, and was a founding associate director, with the Center for Media, Art, Games, Interaction and Creativity (MAGIC) . He has served as a Visiting Scholar for the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong National Museum of Play for the last 17 years. During that time he has contributed to the design of the eGameRevolution and Level Up! permanent exhibits and the Rockets, Robots and Ray Guns mounted during the summer of 2016. He founded the Jewish Play Project to support the study of the role of Jewish designers, engineers and inventors, in toys, games, coin-op and video games.
He has been a game and/or narrative designer on the serious game efforts Flip for History, Martha Madison’s Marvelous Machines, MindGamers In School, Just Press Play, Picture the Impossible, and the Mental Health gameful app Repitition Rebellion. HIs most recent game title is The Original Mobile Games released on iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch. He has consulted on game design and narrative for Second Avenue Learning, and Ratatoskr Entertainment,Inc. He was one of the founders of the IGDA Learning, Education and Games, Jewish Developers and Open Source SIGs and has served on the Executive Committees for The IGDA Writers and Educators SIGs and presented numerous times at GDC summits and roundtables, most recently in 2024. He became involved in the Open Source community when he had his students make educational games for the One Laptop per Child/Sugar platform. His work there led to a collaboration with other professors to create the first academic minor in open source and free culture and an early stage effort at a FOSS games SIG for the IGDA. He has served as a board member for Second Avenue Learning, Inc, Rochester City Newspaper, Vertus Charter high School and others.
Richard Lemarchand is a game designer, educator, and consultant, and is the author of A Playful Production Process, for Game Designers (and Everyone), published by the MIT Press in October 2021. He is an Associate Professor in the USC Games program, and is a faculty member of the Interactive Media & Games Division of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Between 2004 and 2012, Richard was a lead game designer at Naughty Dog in Santa Monica, California. He led the design of all three PlayStation 3 games in the Uncharted series including Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – winner of ten AIAS Interactive Achievement Awards, five Game Developers Choice Awards, four BAFTAs and over 200 Game of the Year awards. Richard also worked on Jak 3 and Jak X: Combat Racing for Naughty Dog, and helped to create the successful game series Gex, Pandemonium and Soul Reaver at Crystal Dynamics in the San Francisco Bay Area. He got his game industry start at MicroProse in the UK, where he co-founded the company’s console game division. Richard now teaches game design, development, and production in the USC Games program, and is working on a series of experimental game design research projects as part of the USC Game Innovation Lab. His game The Meadow, a virtual reality art installation game co-created with Martzi Campos, was selected as a finalist in the 2015 IndieCade International Festival of Independent Games, and his latest game, Phenomenology, a VR art game, was selected for exhibition at IndieCade 2018. A passionate advocate of independent and experimental games, Richard regularly speaks in public on the subjects of game design, development, production, philosophy and culture. Richard grew up in a small town in rural England, dreaming of ancient civilizations and outer space. Perhaps as a result, he has a degree in Physics and Philosophy from Oxford University.
Stone Librande, a Senior Designer in the R&D group at Riot Games, has worked in the video game industry for 25 years on games such as SimCity, Spore, and Diablo 3. In addition to his full-time job designing video games, he also teaches game design courses at Carnegie Mellon University’s ETC program and runs design seminars around the world. An avid board game inventor, Stone has published two games: “Mechs vs. Minions” and “Alakazam! The Game of Dueling Wizards”.
Dr. Brian Magerko is a Regents Professor of Digital Media, Director of Graduate Studies in Digital Media, & head of the Expressive Machinery Lab at Georgia Tech. He received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon (1999) and his MS and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan (2001, 2006). His research explores how studying human and machine cognition can inform the creation of new human/computer creative experiences. Dr. Magerko has been research lead on over $20 million of federally-funded research; has authored over 100 peer reviewed articles related to digital media, creativity, cognition, and learning; has had his work shown at galleries and museums internationally; co-authored an internationally adapted framework–and the top-cited article on–AI literacy education and design; and co-founded a music-based learning environment for computer science – called EarSketch – that has been used by over 1.5 million learners worldwide. Dr. Magerko and the Expressive Machinery Lab’s work has been shown in the New Yorker, Washington Post, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Eyedrum, The Goat Farm Arts Center, USA Today, CNN, Yahoo! Finance, NPR, and other global and regional outlets.
Celia Pearce is a game designer and curator, She is the co-editor of Meet Me at the Fair: A World’s Fair Reader (ETC Press, 2014) and the author of Communities of Play (MIT Press, 2009), as well as numerous other books, papers, and book chapters. She is currently an Associate Professor of game design in the College of Arts Media and Design at Northeastern University.
Previously, she was at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she directed the Experimental Game Lab and the Emergent Game Group. Prior to entering academia, she worked in the theme park and museum industries where she designed award-winning attractions, including concept design for a world’s fair pavilion in Japan.
Arthur Protasio is a Latin American Emmy-nominated writer-director with over 10 years of experience renowned for his narrative-driven projects across more than 20 games, VR, comics, film, and TV. His work on indie, AAA, and blockbuster franchises, including Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Asimov’s Foundation, Dreamworks’ Trolls, and Netflix’s Cobra Kai, has garnered international accolades such as Best Game, Best Narrative, and Best VR awards. As the founder and CEO of the creative studio Fableware, Arthur crafts original stories and provides narrative development expertise to clients worldwide on multiplatform projects. With a Law and Design background plus experience as a creative writing professor at the University of British Columbia, Arthur is a community leader dedicated to creating modern-day fables that inspire diversity, critical thinking, and social change.
Gabriela T. Richard is an Associate Professor of Learning, Media and Technology, and Math, Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Sam Roberts is a games curator, educator, and designer whose passion for collaboration and creativity was sparked by Dungeons and Dragons in 1988. He specializes in innovative development practice and building design communities. He is most widely known for co-founding and content directing IndieCade, the ‘Sundance of Games,’ and currently works at UCI Informatics, teaching classes on design, games industry, tabletop roleplaying, and interactive media development.
Dr. Doris C. Rusch is a game designer / researcher with a humanities background who holds a position as Professor in Game Design at Uppsala University. Her games have won numerous awards and she has been an international keynote speaker and presenter including Clash of Realities, DiGRA, Game Developers Conference, Meaningful Play, Nordic Game Conference, FDG and TEDx. She authored Making Deep Games – Designing Games with Meaning and Purpose (Taylor & Francis 2017).
A writer, educator, and consultant, Matt has written and spoken about games for over 20 years.
From 2002-2013 he wrote the monthly “Culture Clash” column for International Game Developers Association website (www.igda.org), promoting the impact of games as an an innovative new art form. His work in human learning and professional development has been leveraged worldwide. Matt is also owner/editor of the media and entertainment website Tap-Repeatedly.com.
David Simkins is an educator, game designer, and lifelong role player living in Madison, WI. He earned his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has taught game design and development for more than ten years, at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater.
Mark Sivak has a PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering and is an Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University jointly appointed in the College of Engineering and the College of Art, Media and Design.
He teaches technical courses in engineering and experience design and has done research in serious games for rehabilitation and education, hardware device design, and additive manufacturing. He has written chapters for the Well Played book series on Half Life 2 and Legacy of Kain: Soulreaver, two of his favorite games.
Francisco Souki (he/him) is Principal Design Manager at Schell Games where he manages and leads several of the studio’s game designers. Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Francisco has 15 years of game design experience across games, location-based experiences, and interactive art. He’s shipped more than 10 projects in Director roles. In addition to his work at Schell Games, Francisco’s expertise extends to include published articles in games journals and academic journals, and appearances at conferences like GDC, Google I/O, PAX Dev, GLS, and InterActivity. His work has been presented or displayed at the Guggenheim Museum NY, Carnegie Museum of Art, Art Center Nabi Korea, MAD NY, Art in America magazine, Performa festival, Three Rivers Arts Festival, and Thrival Festival.Francisco has a Masters in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University and a Telecommunications Engineering degree from UCAB in Caracas, Venezuela. You can learn more about Francisco and his work at www.franciscosouki.com
Kurt Squire is a professor in Informatics at UC, Irvine with an interest in games, learning, identity, and community. He is the author of about 100 things, including two books, most recently, “Making Games for Impact” (MIT Press). His current interest is in play, resiliency, community and recovery.
Constance is a Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine where she researches culture, cognition, and learning in the context of multiplayer online videogames. She is also a 2022 Belfer Fellow with the Anti-Defamation League, Chair of UCI’s Game Design and Interactive Media Program, Co-Director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center, and Chair of the Annual GLS Conference. She teaches courses on games and society, visual design, and research methods. Her current projects include investigations of toxicity and extremism in online games, an audit of game company policies related to player-v-player behavior, and reasoning with misinformation.
She formerly served as Senior Policy Analyst under the Obama administration in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, advising on videogames and digital media. She is the founder of the Federal Games Guild, a working group across federal agencies using games and simulations as tools for thought, and the Higher Education Video Games Alliance, an academic non-for-profit organization of game-related programs in higher education. Her research has been funded by the Anti-Defamation League, the Samueli Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Universities of Cambridge, Wisconsin-Madison, and California-Irvine. She’s published over one hundred articles and book chapters including six conference proceedings, four special journal issues, and two books. She has worked closely with the National Research Council and National Academy of Education on special reports relate to videogames, and her work has been featured in Science, Wired, USA Today, New York Times, LA Times, ABC, CBS, CNN NPR, BBC and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
She has a PhD in Literacy Studies, an MS in Educational Psychology, and three Bachelor’s Degrees in Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies. Her dissertation was a cognitive ethnography of the MMOs Lineage I and II where she ran a large siege guild. Her husband Dr. Kurt Squire is Co-Director of the GLS center at UCI. They live with their two adolescent gamers in Southern California where they enjoy surfing, trail running, camping, and all manner of headset-wearing, dps-flinging, computer-screened mayhem.
Greg Trefry has designed everything from 100-person live-action simulations for museums to documentary video games to giant dodgeball battles. He co-founded the game studio Gigantic Mechanic to explore new ways to bring fun and engaging experiences to the world around us through real-world, physical and social play. He co-founded and served as director of Come Out & Play. Greg teaches at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and NYU Game Center. He wrote the book, Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us. / LinkedIn / @gtrefry
Dr. Caro Williams-Pierce (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at the College of Information at the University of Maryland. Her background is in mathematics, games, and learning, and she earned her PhD in Mathematics Education at the University of Wisconsin – Madison by designing and building a game for mathematical play. Dr. Caro has published in a variety of journals and proceedings, built or consulted on various games for learning, and teaches a wide variety of classes in a wide variety of programs. She conducts research in as many farflung fields as possible, because she gets bored easily – right now, she’s focusing on playful calculus with undergrads, graduate students and trust, and an online platform for teaching that doesn’t make her want to poke her eyes out with forks.
David Wolinsky is a Chicago-based oral historian and documentary researcher. Since 2014, he’s been unraveling complex questions about online culture wars, fandom, and entertainment labor issues through his independent interview series, Don’t Die. Using videogames as a Trojan horse, the series examines how these conflicts resonate across industries like TV, film, VFX, architecture criticism, and even supply-chain activism. His work reveals the broader societal impact of these digital tensions and offers a living archive of over 500 interviews on the evolving relationship between technology and society.
This archive, preserved by Stanford, has informed exhibits at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, case studies by Cornell Worker Institute, and reporting by the Wall Street Journal. His interviews also led to his first book, The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate, The Aftermath, and the Quest for a Safer Internet (Beacon, August 2024).
In addition to collaborations with the University of Washington’s Information School, Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and Northeastern University, David’s earlier journalism career includes award-winning work for The Onion A.V. Club and NBC, as well as receiving the New York Videogame Critics Circle’s journalism award in 2017. His interviews continue to bridge industries, creating a comprehensive resource to understand early 21st-century digital life.