Jennifer deWinter
Professor-Arts, Communications, and Humanities
Office: FL B25a
Phone: +1-508-831-6679
Jennifer deWinter has long been interested in how culture (which is local) moves internationally. She has spent a number of years analyzing anime, comics, and computer games as part of global media flows in order to understand how concepts such as "art," "culture," and "entertainment" are negotiated. In 2003, Professor deWinter joined the Learning Games Initiative, a group of scholars and game designers dedicated to the general study of games and the use of games to teach concepts and skills in particular. ... View Profile
Emmanuel O. Agu
Professor-Computer Science
Email: emmanuel@wpi.edu
Office: Fuller Labs 139
Phone: +1-508-831-5568
Emmanuel Agu is currently an associate professor in the computer science department at WPI having received his Masters and PhD in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His research interests are in the areas of computer graphics, mobile computing, and wireless networks. He is especially interested in research into how to use a smartphone as a platform to deliver better healthcare. ... View Profile
A true hybrid across disciplines, professor Arroyo specializes in Learning Sciences, Computer Science and Educational/Cognitive Psychology. Her expertise is in the design of novel technologies for learning and assessment for mathematics, for students throughout the K-12 level. She and her team create intelligent tutoring systems that automatically assess students’ math skills, affective states and metacognitive states, respond to students on the spot, and report strengths and weaknesses (in real time) to the teacher, as students are working on computers or mobile devices. ... View Profile
Frederick W. Bianchi
Professor of Music
Humanities and Arts
Email: bianchi@wpi.edu
Office: AH 205
Phone: +1-207-691-3921
Professor Frederick Bianchi works in the area of music technology. As the director of music technology research, Bianchi works with students from all disciplines. His particular focus is Virtual Orchestra technology and multichannel sound design. In addition to overseeing the Media Arts Group Innovation Center (MAGIC), Professor Bianchi is also the director of the Bar Harbor, Maine Project Center and the Glacier National Park Project Center. View Profile
Roshanak Bigonah has studied Education and Technology, and Media with concentration in Video Production and Advertising. For the past 13 years, she has taught a wide range of courses in Digital Arts including Graphic Arts, Web Design, Photography, Videography and 3D Design. Roshanak Bigonah has worked as a freelance graphic and web designer. In addition to her teaching interests Roshanak Bigonah, is a poet and has published four poetry books in her native language, Farsi. A collection of her works has been translated and published in Dutch and German. ... View Profile
Mark Claypool has been a professor of Computer Science and Interactive Media Game Development at WPI since 1997. Mark has a B.A. in Mathematics from Colorado College and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed conference and journal papers and written two books on computer games. He has chaired several ACM conferences on networks, games and multimedia and served on the technical program committee for over 40 of them. ... View Profile
Information visualization is a powerful means for understanding data and informing human minds. As people begin to rely on visualizations to make high-impact and even life-critical decisions, there is a growing need to ensure that information can be perceived accurately and precisely. My research addresses these challenges by leveraging cognitive and perceptual principles to quantify and model user performance with visualizations. ... View Profile
Neil T. Heffernan enjoys doing educational data mining and running the ASSISTments system. ASSISTments helps schools teach better. It’s a web service hosted at WPI that allows teachers to assign nightly homework or daily class work. Students get instant feedback while teachers get live reports. Professor Heffernan enjoys supervising WPI students in creating ASSISTments content and features. He has 6 dozens paper in educational data mining, and 20+ papers in comparing different ways to optimize student learning. ... View Profile
Marie T Keller
Assistant Teaching Professor
Humanities and Arts
Email: mkeller@wpi.edu
Office: Salisbury Labs 031
Phone: +1-508-831-5436
WPI provides opportunities to investigate worlds beyond your major, and one of those worlds might be art. It might seem an alien world, but many art skills can be useful beyond making art. Drawing enhances spatial perception. Solving design problems hones communication skills. Dreaming up impossible ideas can illuminate what is possible. Sometimes students show up the first day of my course worried that they lack talent or experience. Instead, I recommend committing to practice the skills presented in class, as if approaching music or engineering studies. ... View Profile
I teach digital game design using minimalist, practice-oriented techniques which engage and delight students while making them work harder than they ever imagined. View Profile
Dean Michael O'Donnell
Assistant Teaching Professor
Email: dodo@wpi.edu
Office: SL 209
Phone: +1-508-831-5947, +1-508-831-5946
Dean O’Donnell is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and game writer. He has been interested in video games since winning his first Atari 2600 in the Kellogg’s “Stick Up for Breakfast!” contest in 1976. While writing plays he earned extra cash writing strategy guides and dialogue for long-forgotten games like One Must Fall 2097, and Highway Hunter. He is a published playwright, and his 2002 short film, Legwork 2002 Tom Luce Christian Stolte, can be found on YouTube. His work can also be found in Titan Quest: Immortal Throne the 2004 expansion pack to the hit game Titan Quest. ... View Profile
Erin Ottmar is an assistant professor of psychology and learning sciences at WPI. She received her BA in psychology and elementary education from the University of Richmond. After college, she spent several years teaching in Ecuador and Japan. In 2011, she received her PhD in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science from the University of Virginia. After graduate school, returned to a small liberal arts environment and spent 3 years as a post-doctoral research scientist at the University of Richmond. ... View Profile
My research examines human-centered computing in digital arts practice. I designed and developed a creative coding environment for the browser, Gibber (http://gibber.cc), that I use both for educational research and audiovisual performances. Gibber is used to teach computational media to middle school, high school and university students in locations around the world, and I've performed with it throughout the US, UK and Asia in the experimental performance genre known as live coding. View Profile
Joshua Rosenstock
Associate Professor
Office: Salisbury Labs 208
Phone: +1-508-831-5584, +1-508-831-5000
Born to an artist mother and a musician father, Josh was destined from a young age for a life in the arts. An early interest in black and white darkroom photography and art-house cinema led him to study film and video art at Brown University. Fortuitously stumbling on a new course in multimedia art in his last term as an undergraduate, his zeal for digital media was unleashed. The next formative episode in Josh's career found him designing interactive exhibits, such as the claymation studio at Zeum, a hands-on, multimedia arts and technology museum for kids in San Francisco. ... View Profile
John Sanbonmatsu is interested in critical theory, including theories of social change, and political philosophy. View Profile
Lee Sheldon is a professional game writer and designer currently working on his 43rd game. He joined the Interactive Media and Game Development (IMGD) program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2015. For five years previously he was an Associate Professor in the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. There he was co-director of the GSAS program for three years and created the first full writing for games program in the United States. ... View Profile
Gillian Smith
Assistant Professor
Email: gmsmith@wpi.edu
Office: Fuller Labs B23
Phone: 508 831 6986
Dr. Smith's research interests are in computational creativity, game design, computer science education, and the intersection of traditional crafts and computation. Her interdisciplinary work merges technical research in AI and HCI with creative practice in textiles and games, with a view towards addressing social issues and broadening participation and perspectives on computing. ... View Profile
Ralph Sutter is a character artist and animator, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Animation from the New England Institute of Art, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and with "Highest Honors" in the department. Two of his student pieces were featured in the 2010 Autodesk Student Entertainment Showreel with other 2010 awards including Animator of the Year, Highest Honors in Animation, and Intellectual Engagement. His video short "Mime Fight!" won the Best Animation award at AIME in 2010. ... View Profile
Keith Zizza
Instructor/Lecturer-Computer Science
Liberal Arts
Email: kzizza@wpi.edu
Office: Salisbury Labs 205
Phone: +1-508-831-4928
I began my audio career "old school": editing with analog tape, a chopping block, and razor blades. I've since spent the past 20 years in digital audio, most of that time exclusively in the video game industry. Audio is one-third of the gaming experience; I'm most interested in optimizing the technical and aesthetic qualities of a game's soundscape (the interactive melting pot of music, sound effects, and dialogue), the end result being helping to suspend the player's disbelief and make game play even more immersive and engaging. ... View Profile