Greg Trefry designs games and playful experiences for cities, museums, non-profits, TV networks, amusement parks and just for fun. His studio, Gigantic Mechanic has designed and produced award winning games covering a range of social issues from politics to immigration.

Greg has spoken at conferences around the world about play, games and design. He wrote the book Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us and teaches at New York University. Greg serves as the director of the annual real-world game festival, Come Out & Play.

Gabriela T. Richard is an Assistant Professor of Learning, Design and Technology at Pennsylvania State University in the College of Education. Prior to starting at Penn State, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow for Academic Diversity at University of Pennsylvania in the Graduate School of Education.

Francisco is a Game Designer and Project Director at Schell Games, where he currently focuses on VR and location-based entertainment. His work spans many mediums and locations – from mobile devices to museums such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He is originally from Caracas, Venezuela and holds a Master of Entertainment Technology degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

• Homepage: www.franciscosouki.com

Elisa Gopin is an educational game designer with a passion for STEM education. As founder of the educational multimedia development company Lifelong-Learner.com she works on projects that promote creativity and problem solving skills, and teaches online courses that train teachers in the use of Web 2.0 tools in education, digital storytelling, and games in the classroom. Elisa was the driving force behind the development of BackPackGames.com, a website that provides quality educational games categorized by academic content, cognitive skill, grade level, and educational standards.

Eli Neiburger is Deputy Director at the Ann Arbor District Library and author of GAMERS… IN THE LIBRARY?! He is the designer of AADL’s Summer Game and organizer of International Library videogame tournaments. He has a triforce tattoo and enjoys arranging Nintendo music for his family wind band.

• Twitter: @ulotrichous
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Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories and transformational experiences across texts, comics, games and other media. He is the Director of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University and the Founding Editor of ETC Press and its Well Played series and journal. He also served as the interim Director for Randy Pausch’s Alice Project.

Dr. Theresa Jean Tanenbaum (“Tess”) is a game designer, artist, maker, and assistant professor in the Department of Informatics at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California-Irvine where she is a founding member of the Transformative Play Lab. She received her PhD from the School of Interactive Arts + Technology at Simon Fraser University.

Derek A. Burrill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of Die Tryin’: Videogames, Masculinity, Culture (2008) and The Other Guy: Media Masculinity Within the Margins (2014), as well as essays in a variety of journals and anthologies. He currently sits in the editorial board of Games & Culture and the Journal of Games and Virtual Worlds

People typically dismiss videogames as merely popular entertainment. But videogames are a major industry that’s grown into a $100B juggernaut — nearly 10x the NFL’s revenue — insulated from the scrutiny applied to comparable commercial empires.