James Earl Cox III
Co-founder of Seemingly Pointless, James Earl Cox III completed a self-set challenge of making 100 games in 5 years. He holds a master’s degree from USC in Interactive Media and Game Design and is a Miami University of Ohio alumnus with honors in Creative Writing, Mass Communication, and Interactive Media. His work has received honorable mentions from the IGF, received awards from IndieCade, Serious Play, Meaningful Play, and landed him in Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to games, his writing can be found on Gamasutra. Tweet at him: @Just404it
Cox is the chair of the So Bad It’s Good arcade track at the 2018 conference.
Alex Leitch
Alex Leitch is a technology consultant and interactive-weird-future-things-maker who lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Some of Alex’s more notable recent projects include Hothouse, a Toronto Arts Council-sponsored installation of large-scale robot flowers at Come Up To My Room 2017 at the Gladstone Hotel, and the brain-controlled Nebula Space Derby for the Zeenoks Bar Night. In their spare time, Alex writes criticism about contemporary art and technology. Alex’s work can be found online at http://alexleitch.com.
Leitch is the chair of the Different Tools For Different Game Developers track of the 2018 conference.
Alenn Predko
Alenn Predko is a Toronto based artist, fabricator, and play architect. They build carnivalesque worlds which explore how we can playfully engage with reality. Through illustration, integrated technology, games, and fabrication these works create deep and immersive worlds to be explored. Their work has focused on technology as magic, games about nostalgia and loss, and using the body as a medium for playful experience. They graduated from OCAD U in the Digital Futures program. Their work has been showcased at EDIT in Toronto, at Make Fashion in Calgary, and the Fancy Video Game Ball with the Hand Eye Society in Toronto.
Predko is the chair of the Virtual Mechanics in Actual Reality workshop track at the 2018 conference.
Collette Quach
Collette is a writer for film and video games as well as a documentary filmmaker. Her interests in games comes from a Critical Race and Sociological lens, particularly looking how Race and gender are portrayed in Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her other interests include Asian American studies, community organizing, and games for social change.
Quach is the chair of the Representation in/from the Margins track at the 2018 conference.
Tanya X. Short
Tanya X. Short is the Captain of Kitfox Games, the Canadian indie studio behind of Boyfriend Dungeon, Moon Hunters, and the Shrouded Isle. She is also the co-founder and co-director of Pixelles, a feminist games collective, and the co-editor of the textbook Procedural Generation in Game Design (CRC Press, 2017) and upcoming Procedural Storytelling in Game Design.
Short is the chair of the System-driven / Procedural track at the 2018 conference.
Gillian Smith
Gillian Smith is an Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in the Interactive Media & Game Development program. Her research focuses on computational craft, specifically on examining new entertainment experiences, creative expression, and educational opportunities that arise from the integration of computer science and textile-based crafts. She also conducts research in procedural content generation, game artificial intelligence, and computational creativity.
Smith is the chair of the {Craft|Game} Play workshop track at the 2018 conference.
Ahmed K. Yousof
Ahmed K. Yousof is an Assistant Professor of game Studies in Pennsylvania State University (Erie Campus). Through his research, different topics of intercultural communication and video games culture have been tackled. He has developed a wining-award video game prototype (i.e. HERO I) that addresses the cultural differences between the US and The Middle East.
Yousof is the chair of the Multiculturalism in Video Games track at the 2018 conference.