Newsmakers

July 25, 2025

James Rice, lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity, is presenting the cybersecurity game Hacker Troll House on Aug. 9 at DEF CON 33 in Las Vegas. Rice created the game where users take on a variety of entry-level Linux security challenges against the Trolls, who don’t play fair. The game will run in Red Team Village at DEF CON—the largest hacking and security conference.

July 18, 2025

Naresh Kshetri, lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity, co-edited the book Deep Learning and Blockchain Technology for Smart and Sustainable Cities. The book features 20 chapters exploring deep learning and blockchain concepts for sustainable smart-city ecosystems, blockchain security enhancement solutions, and key points necessary for developing various blockchain and DL‑based intelligent transportation systems.

July 16, 2025

Dukka KC, chair of the Department of Computer Science, edited the book Large Language Models (LLMs) in Protein Bioinformatics. The recently published book contains 19 chapters covering a wide range of topics related to LLMs and their diverse applications in bioinformatics. Reflecting on the swift pace of LLM development today, the volume delves into numerous LLM-based tools to investigate proteins science, from protein language models to the prediction of protein-ligand binding sites.

July 11, 2025

A team of new media interactive development and new media design students won Best Interactive or Experiential Project for their interactive game show experience, Overboard, at the Motion Design Education Summit in Prague. The team of seven designers and three developers created the experience in partnership with The Strong National Museum of Play for the “Beyond the Buzzer: Game Shows in America” exhibit, and was recently featured on WROC-TV.

July 7, 2025

Owen Gottlieb, associate professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media, presented “Shipping Student Games Today—It Still Takes a Village (Western NY Perspectives)” on June 29 at the Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives (ARDIN) and Higher Educational Video Game Alliance (HEVGA) Workshop: Global Game Education Now. Gottlieb discussed challenges in post-pandemic years of taking student and faculty games to market and the creative approaches he and colleagues have been developing to navigate changes in the games and interactive media environment.

June 10, 2025

‌

 

Owen Gottlieb, associate professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media, and colleagues published "Use and benefits of a digital therapeutic for chronic pain management: A pilot study" in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, a journal from the American Physiological Association. The study findings support the continued development of an easily accessible and highly scalable digital therapeutic hypnosis prototype for people wishing to gain control over their chronic pain.

June 10, 2025

‌

Owen Gottlieb, associate professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media, and colleagues published “Hypnosis and mindfulness audio recordings for reducing fatigue in individuals with multiple sclerosis: A randomized controlled study,” in the Multiple Sclerosis Journal. The study developed interactive media to teach individuals self-hypnosis and mindfulness strategies for fatigue management, without needing to work with a trained clinician or pharmaceuticals. The program reduced fatigue and depressive symptoms in a study of 333 people with MS.

June 9, 2025

David Schwartz, director of the School of Interactive Games and Media, presented the paper “Serious Geogames for Cybersecurity and Disaster Management: Overview of Applications and Their Implementations” at the Geogames Symposium 2025 in Dublin, Ireland. This work represents a collaboration with co-authors from Iowa State and University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.

June 6, 2025

‌

Owen Gottlieb, associate professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media, authored a chapter in The Archivability of Television: Essays on Preservation and Perseverance, a book in the Peabody Series in Media History—a collaboration of the University of Georgia Press and the Peabody Awards Collection. The chapter, titled “Heritage in Search of a Home: Archiving the Learning Designs and Artistry of Instructional Television of the 1970s and 1980s,” addresses the rescuing of historical collections that hold design implications for learning with games and interactive media today.

May 28, 2025

David Schwartz, director of the School of Interactive Games and Media, and Rabbi Sandra Katz presented at and facilitated the Chaplaincy Game Jam at the NAJC Conference on May 11-14. The exploratory work investigates new ways to educate patients, families, and health providers about spiritual care.