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Will Wright co-founded Maxis in 1987 and is its Chief Designer. He began working on what would become SimCity--The City Simulator in 1985. Released in 1989, SimCity has since won 24 domestic and international awards. SimEarth, SimAnt, and SimCopter are among Wright's subsequent game designs. In 2000 Wright's ground-breaking game, The Sims, put players in charge of the lives of a neighborhood of simulated people and became a cultural phenomenon. It inspired in 2002 The Sims Online(TM), which was featured in a cover story in Newsweek . The Sims 2, which debuted in 2004, became the fastest selling PC game ever, selling more than a million copies in the first ten days worldwide. In 2002 Wright was #35 on Entertainment Weekly 's Power List and was also inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame. In 2003 Wright was featured in Game Informer' s Top 10 Developer List of 2003.


Ian Bogost is Assistant Professor of Literature, Communication, and Culture at Georgia Tech, where he teaches and researches in undergraduate and graduate programs in digital media. Bogost's current research interests include videogame criticism (the subject of a forthcoming book, Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism ) and videogame rhetoric (including the function of ideology, politics, advertising, and education in games). Bogost was co-designer (with Gonzalo Frasca) of The Howard Dean for Iowa Game , the first ever videogame officially endorsed by a U.S. Presidential candidate. In addition, Bogost is co-editor (with Gonzalo Frasca) of Water Cooler Games (www.watercoolergames.org), a website about videogames with an agenda. Bogost is the founder of two companies, Persuasive Games and Open Texture. He holds a BA in Comparative Literature and Philosophy from the University of Southern California, and an MA and PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA.

Jay David Bolter is Director of the Wesley New Media Center and Wesley Chair of New Media at Georgia Tech. He is the author of Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age; Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing ; Remediation (with Richard Grusin); and Windows and Mirrors (with Diane Gromala). In addition to writing about new media, Bolter collaborates to construct new digital media forms. With Michael Joyce, he created Storyspace, a hypertext authoring system. With Blair Macintyre, he is building an Augmented Reality (AR) system to create dramatic and narrative experiences for entertainment and informal educational settings.

Amy Bruckman is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. She and her students in the Electronic Learning Communities (ELC) research group do research on online communities and education. Current projects include AquaMOOSE 3D (a graphical world designed to help teenagers learn about the behavior of mathematical functions), Anival (an online festival of animation designed to encourage elementary and middle-school students to develop both technical and artistic skills through creating original computer animation), and The Open Policy Project (in which undergraduates studying goverment contribute and critique positions on issues of public policy). Amy received her PhD from the MIT Media Lab's Epistemology and Learning group in 1997, her MSVS from the Media Lab's Interactive Cinema Group in 1991, and her BA in physics from Harvard University in 1987. In 1999 she was named one of the 100 top young innovators in science and technology in the world (TR100) by Technology Review magazine.

Steven Chiang is General Manager of Electronic Arts, Tiburon. In this role, he manages EA's Orlando studio, which creates some of the best selling titles in the industry, including Madden NFL Football, NCAA Football, NFL STREET, and NASCAR. His responsibility includes overseeing game design, programming, artwork, audio, research and development, quality assurance, and strategy for top EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS BIG, and a yet to be announced EA GAMES branded title. Prior to EA, Steven was a co-founder of Tiburon Entertainment in 1994, which EA later acquired and now has more than 400 employees. Chiang received an electrical engineering degree from Columbia University.

Chris Crawford earned an MS in Physics from the University of Missouri in 1975. After teaching physics for several years, he joined Atari as a game designer in 1979. There he created a number of games: Energy Czar, an educational simulation about the energy crisis; Scram, a nuclear power plant simulation; Eastern Front (1941), a wargame; Gossip, a social interaction game; and Excalibur, an Arthurian game. Following the collapse of Atari in 1984, Crawford took up the Macintosh. He created Balance of Power, a game about diplomacy; Patton Versus Rommel, a wargame; Trust & Betrayal, a social interaction game; Balance of the Planet, an environmental simulation game; and Patton Strikes Back, a wargame. In 1992, Crawford decided to leave game design and concentrate his energies on interactive storytelling. He created a major technology for interactive storytelling systems, patenting it in 1997. Crawford has written five published books: The Art of Computer Game Design , now recognized as a classic in the field; Balance of Power (the book) ; The Art of Interactive Design ; Chris Crawford on Game Design ; and Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling .

Steve Cross is a Vice President of Georgia Tech and the Director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute. He also holds faculty appointments as a Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering and as a Professor in the College of Computing. Before joining Georgia Tech in 2003, he was the Director of the Software Engineering Institute and a Principal Research Scientist in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983, a MSEE from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1977, and a BSEE from the University of Cincinnati in 1974. Steve is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and past Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Intelligent Systems. He serves on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and the Information Science and Technology Panel for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Irfan Essa received a BS degree in 1988 from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He received the SM and PhD degrees in 1990 and 1994, respectively, from the MIT, working at the MIT Media Laboratory. He also worked as a research scientist from 1994 to1996 at MIT, before joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 1996. He has received the U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Imlay Fellowship, Edenfield Fellowship, and the College of Computing Research, Teaching, and Dean's Awards. He is an associate professor in the College of Computing and an adjunct professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is affiliated with the Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center and has founded the Computational Perception Laboratory (CPL) at Georgia Tech. His research interests are in video analysis and synthesis, video-based rendering and animation, activity modeling and discovery, and intelligent and aware environments. He has served on Program Committees of premier conferences like ACM SIGGRAPH, UIST, and IEEE ICCV and CVPR and is presently an Associate Editor of IEEE Transaction on PAMI.

Bing Gordon has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts since March 1998. Prior to this, he served as Executive Vice President, Marketing since October 1995. From August 1993 to October 1995, he served as Executive Vice President of EA Studios and as Senior Vice President of Entertainment Production since February 1992. He also served as Senior Vice President of Marketing, as General Manager of EA Studios, as Vice President of Marketing, as Director of Advertising and as Vice President of the former entertainment division while employed by the company. Gordon holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University. He is a trustee at the Urban School of San Francisco and is a board member for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team. He launched and co-taught Videogame Prototype Design at Stanford University.

Dale Herigstad is Schematic's Creative Director and co-founder. He has designed more than 15 network broadcast packages, including the on-air graphics for three Winter Olympics for CBS (Albertville 92, Lillehammer 94, and Nagano 98), for which he won three Emmy awards. His user interface experience includes Enhanced and Interactive TV, the Internet, and broadband networks, as well as emerging wireless media. A leader in interactive television, Herigstad designed the interface for Time Warner's groundbreaking Full Service Network in Orlando. He has been active for many years with the AFI Enhanced TV Workshop and has taught design, information architecture, and animation at California Institute of the Arts, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and UCLA. He served on the board of the Broadcast Designers Association and is currently on the board of the Interactive Television Alliance.

Christopher W. Klaus is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Klaus Entertainment. In 1994 he founded Internet Security Systems (NASDAQ:ISSX) and helped grow the company to a preeminent position in the network security industry. In 1992 he developed ISS' first software program and flagship product, Internet Scanner, while attending the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also developed the four-quadrant strategy for focusing on intrusion protection with security assessment and intrusion detection for both network and host. Klaus provides high-level security consultation to a number of global government organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Most recently, he was selected to co-chair the Technical Standards and Common Criteria Task Force for the Department of Homeland Security National Cyber Security Summit. The task force is one of five private sector sponsored task forces to address cyber security issues within the President's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace and will be recommending metrics and action for implementation to the Department of Homeland Security.

Kenneth J. Knoespel is Chair of the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture and McEver Professor of Engineering and the Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. He has published widely on visualization and science studies in early modern Europe. In addition to recent work on cognition and visual practice in mathematics and architecture, he has worked on cartography and narrative. He has recently edited a collection of essays on Diagrams and the Anthropology of Space.  He has worked closely with universities in Europe as well as Russia and is currently completing a project concerned with cities and landscape on the Baltic Sea. At Georgia Tech, he has participated in the development of undergraduate and graduate programs in the Ivan Allen College. Knoespel received his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago and has taught at the University of Uppsala, Cornell University, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, and the Russian Academy of Science.

Blake Lewin is vice president of product development and innovation for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. ( TBS, Inc.) New Product Development. He has led the production of enhanced TV applications on various emerging platforms; invented two patents filed for TBS, Inc. on iTV and broadband systems; managed online development for Turner Entertainment Web sites; licensed and produced CD-ROM products and games such as Woodstock , Hell Cab , Dinotopia , PageMaster , ToonJam and Carl Sagan's Murmurs of Earth ; and established industry policies for the licensing of music and image assets for CD-ROMs with the Harry Fox Agency, BMI, and the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Lewin earned a BA in music in composition, with a minor in electronic music, as well as an associate's degree in audio technology from the Indiana School of Music.

Paul Marino is an award-winning Machinima director and designer, having worked in this new medium for the past six years. He is also the author of the first book about Machinima - The Art of Machinima . He currently leads the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences as its Executive Director, and runs the annual Machinima Film Festival in New York. Marino has also appeared in a number of articles and segments about Machinima in media outlets such as The Economist , Entertainment Weekly , NPR, Wired , PBS, the Wall Street Journal , the New York Times , and CNN. Prior to his involvement with Machinima, Marino was a broadcast design/animation professional where he received several awards for his animation, including an Emmy for his work with Turner Broadcasting.

Michael Mateas explores the intersection between art and artificial intelligence, forging a new art practice and research discipline called Expressive AI. He is currently a faculty member at Georgia Tech, where he holds a joint appointment in the College of Computing and the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. At Georgia Tech, Michael is the founder of the Experimental Game Lab, whose mission is to push the technological and cultural frontiers of computer-based games. With Andrew Stern he developed the interactive drama Facade, an AI-based, first-person, real-time, interactive story. Michael received his BS in Engineering Physics from the University of the Pacific, his MS in Computer Science from Portland State University, and his PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Janet H. Murray is the director of Georgia Tech's Masters Degree Program in Information Design and Technology and PhD in Digital Media.  She is the author of Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace , which has been translated into six languages, and widely recognized as a roadmap for the convergence of digital games and storytelling. Murray is currently working on a textbook for MIT Press, Inventing the Medium: A Principled Approach to Interactive Design , and on a digital edition of the Warner Brothers classic, Casablanca,  funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, in collaboration with the American Film Institute.  She also directs Georgia Tech's eTV Prototyping Group, which has created interactive television applications for PBS, ABC, and others.  Murray holds a PhD from Harvard University and came to Georgia Tech from MIT, where she directed pioneering projects in humanities computing and taught the first university course in interactive narrative. She is a Trustee of the American Film Institute.

Michael Nitsche holds an MA in Theaterwissenschaft and Germanistik from the FU Berlin, a MPhil in Architecture and the Moving Image, and a PhD in Architecture from the University of Cambridge. Initially he was interested in effective dramaturgy for interactive new media until he discovered that that many of his questions were rooted in the spatial form of virtual worlds. From then on his research concentrated on the design, presentation, and use of virtual spaces via a combination of theoretical analysis and practical experiments. These experiments include collaborations with the National Film and Television School, London; Sony Computer Entertainment, Europe; and other game developers. He joined Georgia Tech in 2004 and works as Assistant Professor at the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, where he teaches courses on interactive video and virtual environments. Nitsche has published on the use of cinematic language, performance, and space in virtual worlds. He has also worked as co-author for a commercial videogame, as Improv actor, and as screenwriter.

Celia Pearce is a game designer, artist, researcher, teacher, and author of The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution , as well as numerous other articles on interactive media, game design, and culture. She currently is Research and External Relations Manager for the Arts Layer of Cal-(IT)2 (California Institute for Telecommunication and Information Technology), and Senior Research Associate for the Game Culture & Technology Lab at the University of California Irvine, where she has also taught game design and interactive art. Previously, she was a Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California, where she produced "Entertainment in the Interactive Age," a highly acclaimed conference on game design, and helped to develop the MFA Program in Interactive Media for the School of Cinema-Television. In her 20-year career as an interactive media and attractions designer, she has served as Creative Director for Iwerks and Evans & Sutherland's award-winning Virtual Adventures: The Loch Ness Expedition, a 24-player virtual reality attraction; she has created Purple Moon Friendship Adventure Cards for Girls; she was the Panels Chair for SIGGRAPH 98, and a founding board member for the Digital Games Research Association.

Ken Perlin is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University . He is the Director of the Media Research Laboratory . He directed the NYU Center for Advanced Technology from 1994-2004. His research interests include graphics, animation, and multimedia. In January 2004 he was the featured artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art . In 2002 he received the NYC Mayor's award for excellence in Science and Technology and the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU. In 1997 he won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television. In 1991 he received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. Perlin received his PhD in Computer Science from New York University in 1986, and a BA in theoretical mathematics from Harvard University in 1979. He has served on the Board of Directors of the New York chapter of ACM/SIGGRAPH, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Software Industry Association.

Lassi Tasajärvi is a digital media consultant and curator, focusing on creative communities, hacker cultures, and pervasive mobile game development. He runs his own consulting and production company, the Evenlake Studios. His work also includes planning and teaching cross-disciplinary courses at Finnish digital media/art schools, including the University of Art and Design Helsinki and the Turku Arts Academy. He lectures actively at international festivals and writes about digital media culture. His latest international book, Demoscene: The Art of Real-Time , introduces an underground software-cracking culture that emerged in the early 1980s and later transformed into professional game development and media art phenomenon in many European countries. Tasajärvi also curated and produced the touring "Demoscene" exhibition, which premiered at Kiasma, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki. He has also worked as the director of the katastro.fi collective, credited as "one of the most influential and innovative multimedia art platforms on the European scene."