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< Back Dr Jon Hook University of York Supervisor Jon Hook is a Senior Lecturer (equivalent to an Associate Professor) in Interactive Media in the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media at the University of York. His research is situated in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and explores the design and development of new interactive media content forms and tools to support their creation. This research combines his deep interest in new forms of interactive technology and media with empirical, theoretical and methodological perspectives, in the human-centred design of novel interfaces and interaction techniques for a broad range of artistic and everyday creative practices. His current research is focused on the design and development of new forms of responsive and immersive media content, with a particular interest in data-driven storytelling. He was recently the principal investigator of the EPSRC funded Perspective Media: Personalised Video Storytelling for Data Engagement project. He also a co-investigator of the InnovateUK WEAVR: Pioneering Fully Integrated Cross-Reality Spectator Experiences in Esports and Beyond immersive experiences demonstrator and the Digital Creativity Labs – a £4m EPSRC, AHRC and InnovateUK funded research centre exploring impact-driven research in the creative industries. He was also previously Co-I of the AHRC Within the walls of York Gaol: Memory, Place and the Immersive Museum the AHRC Digital Creativity for Regional Museums: Immersive Experiences Smart Commissioning Toolkit. He is especially interested in supervising students who’d like to do HCI research that involves making and evaluating new interactive media experiences. Some example topic areas that he might be the right supervisor for include, but aren’t limited to: Games to support broader data engagement and literacy Data-driven storytelling in, and about, games The intersection between games and interactive documentary film Responsive and interactive video storytelling in games The space where theatre and games converge Cultural heritage engagement using games Research themes: Game Design Games with a Purpose E-Sports Player Experience Email jonathan.hook@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Esports Player Research - Previous Next

< Back - Meet me @ Develop:Brighton 2026 - Tania Dales University of York iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Tania is an indie video game designer and developer, working with horror, science fiction and games which are a little strange, bizarre and uncomfortable. About Tania's research: "My research explores the relationship between humanoid character design and existential horror in video games. I adopt a mixed methods approach, investigating existing games, designer interviews and player surveys, along with a research-through-design methodology, reflecting on the practice of character design. The core games I am exploring incorporate themes of existential horror, identity, self, and human existence. In video games with horror themes, non-playable characters (NPCs) are often used to prompt a reaction from the player, and it isn’t always fear. There are often times when the NPC isn’t acting in an outwardly threatening way, yet it still causes us to become unsettled. My research explores unsettling NPCs that incorporate themes of existential horror." Email tania.dales@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor: Dr Ben Kirman Themes Design & Development Game AI Immersive Technology Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Igor Dall'Avanzi Goldsmiths iGGi Alum Creation of accessible tools for the use of procedural audio in video games The aim of this research is to investigate and provide new tools to developers for the use of procedural audio into video games. Procedural approaches could address different issues that commonly afflict game audio. In music, generative systems are not only less repetitive, but offer more adaptability as well. For what concerns sound design, they can provide not only variety, but stronger and more realistic support to the interaction with the game world; interaction that is becoming even deeper with the advent of VR Yet, these methods still need improvement on different sides. One is the level of quality that procedural audio needs to achieve to compete with the current aesthetic established by the use of rendered sounds and music in the media. Another is the additional amount of work required by the CPU to render the assets on runtime, and its variable cost). Finally, there is a general lack of user-friendly tools, to link common programming languages for audio to game engines. Software like MaxMsp, Pure Data or SuperCollider is used to design generative audio systems. A more accessible integration of these software could promote generative approaches among sound designers and composers in the field, that today have instead access to tools mainly designed to be used with rendered assets. My plan is to bring on research first by focusing on how a higher degree of quality could be addressed, exploring tools like the above mentioned MaxMsp, Pure Data, low level solutions, and machine learning algorithms. Primary research will be run to confront procedurally generated audio content with rendered one; to understand its impact on the player, and the level of quality needed to deliver a satisfactory experience. The creation of more accessible interfaces and tools dedicated to implement procedural audio in video games will be investigated and undertaken. I like to make noises of all sort and to play with them. For this reason I graduated in Music Production in 2016 and, at the moment of writing, I am finishing my final project for an MSc in Sound and Music for Interactive Games at Leeds Beckett University. Composer and sound designer, in the last year I have been focusing on audio implementation and programming, and I am currently exploring machine learning approaches for procedural audio. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Game Audio Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Sarah West University of York Supervisor Sarah West is an interdisciplinary researcher and practitioner working to bring diverse voices into research through participatory approaches, including citizen science. Sarah is currently Director of SEI York, a Centre of the Stockholm Environment Institute, a science-to-policy research institute, whose York Centre is at the University of York in the Department of Environment and Geography. She has used citizen science approaches to address topics as diverse as air pollution, biodiversity, parenting, and exploring community responses to Covid-19. Her projects mainly take place in the UK and Kenya. Sarah has spent over a decade designing, running and evaluating citizen science projects, and together with other SEI colleagues has written reports for Defra, UK Earth Observation Framework and journal articles exploring who participates in citizen science, their motivations for participation, and how volunteers can be recruited and retained. She is particularly interested in exploring how different messaging and communication affects participation in citizen science projects. Email sarah.west@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Accessibility Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr James Goodman Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum James has picked up degrees in Chemistry, History, Mathematics, Business Administration and Machine Learning. After a career in Consultancy and IT Project Management he is now finally doing the research he always wanted to. James is interested in opponent modelling, theory of mind and strategic communication in multi-player games, and how statistical forward planning can be used in modern tabletop board-games (or other turn-based environments). With a constrained budget, how much time should an agent spend thinking about it's own plan versus thinking about what other players might be doing to get in the way. How does this balance vary across different games? His secondary research interests are in using AI-playtesting as a tool for game-balancing and game-design. Email james.goodman@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Diego Pérez-Liébana Prof. Simon Lucas Featured Publication(s): Dice, Cards, Action! The Analysis, Play and Design of MultiplayerTabletop Board Games with Monte Carlo Tree Search From code to play: Benchmarking program search for games using large language models LLM-based Program Search for Games Seeding for Success: Skill and Stochasticity in Tabletop Games From Code to Play: Benchmarking Program Search for Games Using Large Language Models Skill Depth in Tabletop Board Games Measuring Randomness in Tabletop Games A case study in AI-assisted board game design Following the leader in multiplayer tabletop games PyTAG: Challenges and Opportunities for Reinforcement Learning in Tabletop Games MultiTree MCTS in Tabletop Games Visualizing Multiplayer Game Spaces TAG: Terraforming Mars Fingerprinting tabletop games AI and Wargaming Metagame Autobalancing for Competitive Multiplayer Games Does it matter how well I know what you’re thinking? Opponent Modelling in an RTS game Weighting NTBEA for game AI optimisation Re-determinizing MCTS in Hanabi Noise reduction and targeted exploration in imitation learning for abstract meaning representation parsing UCL+ Sheffield at SemEval-2016 Task 8: Imitation learning for AMR parsing with an alpha-bound Themes Design & Development Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dr Cristina Guerrero-Romero Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Cris is a versatile Software Engineer with four years of experience in web development across different areas of the tech stack. She studied Software and Computer Engineering at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) and is currently completing her PhD at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL); during which she has done two internships at Google. Her research ‘Beyond Playing to Win: Broadening the Study and Use of Gameplaying Agents when Provided with Distinct Behaviours’ is focused on expanding the research on game-playing agents beyond the objective of winning at them. She looks at 1) broadening the scope by diversifying agents goals and heuristics; 2) broadening the vision by proposing a team of agents to assist game development; 3) broadening the usage by eliciting diverse automated gameplay, and 4) broadening the horizon by analysing the strengths of the agents from a Player Experience perspective instead of their performance. Cris is passionate about solving problems and learning. Outside of her work, she enjoys playing video games and TTRPGs. Random facts are that Portal and TLOU are two of her favourite game series and her chosen superpower would be teleportation. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Beyond Playing to Win: Elicit General Gameplaying Agents with Distinct Behaviours to Assist Game Development and Testing Beyond Playing to Win: Creating a Team of Agents with Distinct Behaviours for Automated Gameplay MAP-Elites to Generate a Team of Agents that Elicits Diverse Automated Gameplay Generating Diverse and Competitive Play-Styles for Strategy Games Studying General Agents in Video Games from the Perspective of Player Experience Ensemble Decision Systems for General Video Game Playing Using a Team of General AI Algorithms to Assist Game Design and Testing Beyond playing to win: Diversifying heuristics for GVGAI Themes Design & Development Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Oliver Roughton University of York iGGi Administrator iGGi Admin Based in York alongside Tracy and Helen I act as a Point of contact for iGGi PGRs and provide administrative support in the implementation of iGGi procedures. iGGi PGRs are most likely to hear from me in relation to conference/kit funding and travel bookings for the taught modules and other iGGi events. As well as my admin work I am a part-time PhD student (not with iGGi) and spend much of my free time knitting. Email oliver.roughton@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Previous Next

< Back - Meet me @ Develop:Brighton 2026 - Cameron Johnston Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Cam holds an MPhys in Theoretical Physics from the University of Edinburgh, wherein he combined infectious disease models with fluid dynamics to examine the validity of wastewater-based epidemiology as a method of passively monitoring the prevalence of COVID-19 in an urban population. Cam joined iGGi in 2023 to explore the relationship between video games and physics. A description of Cam's research: The virtual worlds of video games naturally invite a chance to play with the laws of physics. While games regularly tweak their physics, the goal is often to create a simulation of a world that feels realistic and familiar to players. This research seeks to do the opposite: to create virtual worlds that accurately simulate laws of physics unlike our own. Email cameron.johnston@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Josh Reiss Dr Andrew James Wood Themes Creative Computing Design & Development - Previous Next

< Back Shopna Begum Queen Mary University of London iGGi Administrator iGGi Admin iGGi Administrator at QMUL Shopna is part of the iGGi Admin Team which is responsible for the smooth running of iGGi. In her role as iGGi QMUL Administator she provides administrative services and pastoral care to PhD students and assists the iGGi QMUL Manager in key aspects of the Centre's management. Email shopna.begum@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes - Previous Next

< Back Dr Cade McCall University of York Supervisor Cade McCall is an experimental psychologist. He uses games and virtual environments to study emotion, cognition, and behaviour during threatening experiences. His work explores how threat unfolds over time as revealed by dynamics in motion tracking data, psychophysiological measures, and experience-sampling. McCall is interested in supervising projects with a psychological focus, including: ● human interactions with autonomous systems ● the use of games to manipulate emotions ● social interactions within games Research themes: Games with a purpose Player experience Game analytics Email cade.mccall@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Game Data Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Florence Smith Nicholls Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Florence Smith Nicholls is a game AI PhD researcher based in London. They worked as an archaeologist and heritage consultant for 7 years prior to their doctoral research. Building on their heritage background, they have contributed to the field of archaeogaming through experimenting with archaeological approaches to titles such as Elden Ring and Nier: Automata. They coined the term “generative archaeology games” for their doctoral project on the archaeological recording of procedurally generated content. Their work is motivated by contributing to wider research on games preservation, ethics of game AI and procedural narrative. They are also interested in queer approaches to games, having written about queerness and documenting glitches. They are also a freelance narrative designer, previously a member of the writers' room at the indie studio Die Gute Fabrik. During a placement at the British Library they worked on enhanced curation methods for narrative mobile apps, and were commissioned to produce gameplay footage for the Library's Digital Storytelling exhibition. Email f.c.smithnicholls@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor(s): Dr Mike Cook Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk Featured Publication(s): The Dark Souls of Archaeology: Recording Elden Ring “That Darned Sandstorm”: A Study of Procedural Generation through Archaeological Storytelling User-centred collecting for emerging formats Permalife of the Archive: Archaeogaming as Queergaming How To Save A World: The Go-Along Interview as Game Preservation Methodology in Wurm Online Archaeological Gameworld Affordances: A Grounded Theory of How Players Interpret Environmental Storytelling Themes Creative Computing Design & Development Game AI Game Data - Previous Next

< Back Yu-Jhen Hsu Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum I have always been interested in automation specifically within strategy games, starting from civilization 5. I have a background in Artificial Intelligence with a Master of Science degree from Queen Mary, University of London, with a focus on Game AI, Computer Vision and Machine Learning/Deep Learning. My research interests involve Game AI improvement in real-time turned-based games with the help of data science techniques. A description of Yu-Jhen's research: This project has two goals. Firstly, to improve the performance of MCTS (Monte Carlo Search Tree) implementation. Secondly, the goal is focused on building an AI agent that is able to win the game but also provide feedback information/data about it’s decisions to the players and designers. In order to achieve the goal, the plan of the project is to use different data science skills to enable the game AI agent to understand the utility of different actions and decrease the time needed for making decisions. The data collected can also help the game AI agent explain it’s behaviors, hence provided useful information/data for its users and designers. Email y.hsu@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Diego Pérez-Liébana Dr Raluca Gaina Featured Publication(s): Why Choose You?-Exploring Attitudes Towards Starter Pokémon Tribes: a new turn-based strategy game for AI research MCTS Pruning in Turn-Based Strategy Games. Themes Game AI Game Data - Previous Next