Faculty & Students

  • Katherine Isbister

    Director

    Katherine Isbister, Director. Katherine Isbister is a full professor in the University of California, Santa Cruz's Department of Computational Media, where she directs the Social Emotional Technology Lab, and the Center for Computational Experience. She has a Research through Design practice at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction and Games/Play, focused on interactive experiences that heighten social and emotional connections and wellbeing. She is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, and has shown games and playful experiences at IndieCade (Yamove! and SceneSampler), as well as at museums including the San Francisco Exploratorium and the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey. Her most recent book from MIT Press is How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design, winner of an American Library Association award. Isbister is a recipient of MIT Technology Review's Young Innovator Award, and is an ACM Distinguished Scientist.

    Personal page: http://www.katherineinterface.com

    Email: katherine.isbister@ucsc.edu

Postdocs

  • Linda Hirsch

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    Dr. Linda Hirsch is a postdoctoral fellow at the SET lab and is working on the intersection of playful technological intervention and local communities’ climate resilience. Her research focuses on flooding risks in this broad range of natural hazards, including heavy rainfalls, coastal flooding, and precipitation. She holds a doctorial degree Magna cum Laude from the LMU Munich in Germany, where she explored and developed the design concept <i>Traces in Use</i> for meaningful human-environment interaction. She is also an elected executive committee member of the German group “Be-greifbare Interaktion” since 2021, an expert research group within the German Society of Information Technology regarding topics for tangible and embedded interfaces.

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-linda-hirsch-88ba9413a/

    Email: uxresearch@hirschlinda.com

PhDs

  • James Fey

    Ph.D. Candidate

    James Fey is a current Computational Media Ph.D. student and thought leader that has been a member of the SETLab since 2016. While completing his BS in Computer Science: Computer Game Design, he worked on various branches of the Social Wearables Project exploring applications of wearable technology in serious and game-based social settings. Since becoming a graduate student, he has continued working on social wearables along with expanding his research into maker kits and DIY learning. He is a frequent collaborator on hardware projects in the SETlab and in 2019 he was a visiting researcher in the interaction lab at the Univeristy of Saskatchewan. Email:jfey@ucsc.edu

  • Samir Ghosh

    Ph.D. Student

    Samir Ghosh, Ph.D. student. Samir Ghosh is a computational media PhD student focusing on multi-user and networked VR/AR applications, especially those with societal impact. Their interests include WebXR based development, open source, and creative code. Previously they were the Assistant Director at the Ahmanson Lab at USC, where they managed a makerspace, produced a wide array of interdisciplinary VR and AR projects, and taught practical workshops concerning generative art and rapid prototyping. They hold a BS in Computational Linguistics and a BA in Cognitive Science from USC. Email: sghosh17@ucsc.edu

  • MJ Johns

    Ph.D. Student

    MJ Johns (they/them) is a researcher, designer, and innovator focused on the use of novel technologies to solve complex social problems, with a passion for inclusive experience design. Their background is in computer science, game design, and virtual reality development, with a masters degree from CMU's Entertainment Technology Center and a decade of professional experience including software development, project management, and teaching. Currently, MJ's projects include serious games for natural hazard resilience and participatory design activities with communities as well as AI-driven immersive art installations.

Alumni

  • Anthony Angeles

  • Ferran Altarriba Bertran

  • Suzanne B. da Camara

  • Peter Cottrell

  • Ella Dagan

  • Jared Duval

  • Sean Fernandes

  • Sabrina Fielder

  • Muskan Gupta

  • Chen Ji

  • Victor Jialang Li

  • Joshua McVeigh-Schultz

  • Pardis Miri

  • Andrew Moshkovich

  • Anya Osborne

  • Alexandra Pometko

  • Raquel Robinson

  • Elena Márquez Segura

  • Samantha Wang

  • Jimmy Zhou