Interactive Games and Media Research

Our research aims at the future applications and possibilities of games.

Research Areas

Narrative Modeling and Generation; Adversarial Search; Imperfect Information Games; Cognitive Modeling; Automated Game Design; Procedural Content Generation

 

Screen capture of someone playing DOTA 2
The photo exhibits an online interactive testing environment running in the Google Chrome browser with three components labeled: (a) a video recording of a professional Dota 2 esports match, (b) a map with interactive icons that appear according to game events, and (c) a map overlay that provides text interventions to the viewer when icons are clicked. This is from a project that falls under narrative and cognitive modeling, and was published at ACM Interactive User Interfaces 2021.

This graph represents all possible choices a player can make in a simple text game visualized as 36 choice nodes in 15 trees. This project falls under narrative modeling and generation, search, automated game design, and procedural content generation. It was published at the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games 2019.

David Schwartz headshot
Director of the School of Interactive Games and Media
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Software showing Network Team Selector

Visualization showing clouds of stacks of data.

Chart showing Example Data Input Flow During a Real Time Competition.

Free Culture, Free and Open-Source Software

 

David Schwartz headshot
Director of the School of Interactive Games and Media
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
Open Source Education for Game Development
Mapping, Geographical Visualization

 

Location-Based Games & Social Networks, Proximity Technology, Crowdsourcing & Computer Supported Cooperation

 

David Schwartz headshot
Director of the School of Interactive Games and Media
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
Location-based Games, Disaster Management

 

Geographic Visualization, Spatial Thinking, Disaster Management, Refugee Affairs, Mapping
Chao Peng headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-7385
Multi-GPU acceleration, Massive Model Rendering, Parallel Level-of-Detail, Crowd Rendering

 

David Schwartz headshot
Director of the School of Interactive Games and Media
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
Physically-Based Animation, Computer Graphics Education, Cybersecurity Visualization
Owen Gottlieb headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-5364
Instructional Design and Society
Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Multi-species Interaction in the Arts, Environmental/ Ecological Art, Phenomenology, Cybernetics, Philosophical & Critical Analysis
Owen Gottlieb headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-5364
Interactive Media and Wellness
Owen Gottlieb headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-5364
Interactive Narrative
Jessica Bayliss headshot
Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-2507
David Schwartz headshot
Director of the School of Interactive Games and Media
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Flow chart showing User scenarios and Data Collection.

Map of the US with colored dots all over it.

Owen Gottlieb headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-5364
Games for Learning and Social Impact, Games for Change, Games, Religion and Culture, Serious Game

 

Chao Peng headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-7385
Serious Game Development

 

David Schwartz headshot
Director of the School of Interactive Games and Media
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
Game-Based Learning, Cybersecurity Gamification

 

Serious Games
Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality

 

Owen Gottlieb headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-5364
Mobile Augmented Reality Games

 

Reality–Virtuality Continuum, Computer-Mediated Reality, Expanded Reality, Simulated Reality, Trans Reality Gaming

 

Chao Peng headshot
Associate Professor
School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
585-475-7385
Immersive Technology, Multimodal Interaction

Open Research Positions

The Niantic X RIT Geo Games and Media Research Lab is recruiting two Ph.D. students to work on the following two topics around geo games:

  • People-place relationships, civic engagement
  • Accessibility and inclusion

The successful candidates must hold a BSc or MSc in a related field (E.g. Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, Information Science, etc.), and show a great interest in performing high-quality research. They must demonstrate experience in software development. Creativity, communication skills, independence, team working, and being comfortable engaging with users of geo games are valuable advantages. Academic publications as well as a track record of prior participation in research projects is desired (but not required). A good level of technical and scientific English is required.

The positions are full-time and fully funded. Aside from receiving a full tuition waiver and a 12-month stipend, the successful candidates will also receive a budget to support the projects' costs and dedicated research space.

The positions are based in Rochester, NY in the School of Interactive Games and Media which is housed in the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences of Rochester Institute of Technology.

More information about these positions and the lab can be found on the Niantic x RIT Geo Games and Media Research Lab website.

Please contact Prof. Konstantinos Papangelis (kxpigm@rit.edu) to express your interest. Please include the following in your email:

  • A CV, including a list of publications (if any) and the names of two referees.
  • Transcript of grades (unofficial is fine at this stage).