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I am a PhD Student investigating interactive storytelling and games in the SFU SIAT EMIIE Lab under Dr. Magy Seif El-Nasr and Prof. Jim Bizzocchi. My primary PhD research deals with how "narrative meaning" happens in games and interactive media, but my interests also include research in embodiment and game interface, geography and space in virtual worlds, agency and negotiation in digital environments, and improvisational performance techniques for interactive digital storytelling. I am currently involved in the creation of a prototype interactive storytelling system called TUNE: the Tangible Ubiquitous Narrative Environment with my wife, and fellow PhD Student Karen Tanenbaum.

I completed my MA at SIAT in the summer of 2008. My MA was a close reading of the popular game Oblivion from three perspectives: believability, performativity, and adaptivity. Each of these three analytical lenses brought to bear a different discourse and vocabulary to the task of analyzing Oblivion, resulting in three distinct, but complementary readings of the game.

I am a member of the CATGames research network, a multi-institutional research initiative intended to develop creativity tools for Canadian game developers. My CATGames research, done under the supervision of Jim Bizzocchi and Steve DiPaola, is an investigation of the relationship between story, play, and embodiment at the interface level. This is motivated by the recent popularity of so-called “non-traditional-interfaces” that depart from the canonical control pad mechanism that has dominated console game play since its inception.

My background is somewhat eclectic, but it shapes my perspective as a researcher. I did my undergraduate work in Electronic and Experimental Music Composition (with a secondary emphasis in Celtic and Ancient Near Eastern Mythology) at the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies. I spent the years following my BA working as the director of the audio department for a large AV production company, running sound at live venues and theaters, composing music for a video game startup, writing a novel, making improvisational films, developing a tabletop RPG, and apprenticing myself at a friend’s electronics shop.

I am a gamer, a geek, an amateur game designer, and an author, all of which informs my approach to media and game studies. I blog on games and narrative at The Geek Movement .