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March 24, 2009

Omnibus Ada Lovelace Day 09 Post [with an update*]


tag: ALD09post
I pledged to post an entry about a woman in science and technology on Ada Lovelace Day. I have previously published some links to women who I admire on P4Games.org/blog. These posts harmonize with values of Ada Lovelace Day in that they were meant to showcase role models in game development and game studies for all audiences. I repost them here to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day

People whom I admire for their accomplishments in Game Development and Game Studies, who happen to be women:

Jane McGonical and Avant Game

Jane McGonigal is a game designer, a games researcher, and a future forecaster. Find out more about Dr. Jane McGonigal on her website, AvantGame: http://www.avantgame.com/

Celia Pearce

Celia Pearce is a game designer, author, researcher, teacher, curator and artist, specializing in multiplayer gaming and virtual worlds, independent, art, and alternative game genres, as well as games and gender. She began designing interactive attractions and exhibitions in 1983, and has held academic appointments since 1998. She received her Ph.D. in 2006 from SMARTLab Centre, then at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. She currently is Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at Georgia Tech, where she also directs the Experimental Game Lab and the Emergent Game Group. Her game designs include the award-winning virtual reality attraction Virtual Adventures (for Iwerks and Evans & Sutherland) and the Purple Moon Friendship Adventure Cards for Girls. She is the author or co-author of numerous papers and book chapters, as well as The Interactive Book (Macmillan 1997). She has also curated new media, virtual reality, and game exhibitions and is currently Festival Chair for IndieCade, an international independent games festival and showcase series. She is a co-founder of the Ludica women’s game collective. Find out more about Dr. Celia Pearce at her website: http://cpandfriends.com/?p=54

Mary Flanagan

Mary Flanagan holds MFA and MA degrees from the University of Iowa, a BA in Film from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. in Computational Media focusing on activist game design from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UK. She teaches in the Integrated Media Arts MFA program in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College, NYC.[She teaches at Dartmouth College as of this reblogging] Her research group and laboratory in New York is called TiltFactor, a lab focused on the design of activists and socially-conscious software. Find out more about Dr. Mary Flanagan at her websites: http://www.maryflanagan.com/ and Tilt Factor Lab at http://www.tiltfactor.org/

Cindy Poremba

Cindy Poremba is a digital media theorist, producer and curator researching documentary and videogames through Concordia University's Doctoral Humanities program. She holds a Master of Applied Science degree in Interactive Arts from Simon Fraser University, as well as a Hon. BA from the University of Waterloo in Rhetoric & Professional Writing. Her work focuses on rhetoric, feminist and documentary theory as it intersects with cultural memory, recombinant poetics, creative constructionism and aesthetics through digital practice - particularly in the context of games and robotics. Find out more about Cindy Poremba at her website: http://www.shinyspinning.com/

Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen* and That Game Company

That Game Company was founded in 2006 by Jenova Chen* and Kellee Santiago. In that short time it has already published two[three!] ground-breaking titles for the Playstation 3 and for the PC. Each game, “Flow” and “Cloud” [and now "Flower"], combines incredible visual beauty with innovations in gameplay and technology. More information about the company can be found at: http://www.thatgamecompany.com/about.html

*[UPDATE: Brinstar at http://www.acidforblood.net/about.html kindly pointed out that I am suffering from gender confusion and have inadvertently reassigned Jenova Chen's gender from male to female. For the record, Jenova Chen is male. I apologize to Jenova Chen and to the readers of this post for the confusion. It is not my intention to diminish either the Ada Lovelace Day celebration, nor the accomplishments of That Game Company. Thank you to Brinstar for pointing out my error.

More luminaries to cover

In reviewing last year's posts I find that two standouts - who also happen to be women - were missing: Katie Salen and Tracy Fullerton. Their accomplishments are too significant to do any kind of justice in such a small amount of space. I pledge to devote an entry to each in the near future.

Lady Ada Lovelace Day on the web:

Posted by Rafael Fajardo at March 24, 2009 12:00 PM