I am a game designer and game researcher. My research focused on the use of game design practice for facilitating discourse, conveying complex information and supporting participatory processes.

Projects I have worked on range from running a ‘real-time’ global strategic foresight game with the 4000+ young volunteers from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, played entirely through WhatsApp; to designing developing and delivering and fully immersive ‘pop-up’ escape room for conveying humanitarian strategy; to designing and delivering peer-support systems for extreme weight-loss as part of diabetes management in Barbados.

A significant strand of my research involved the creative appropriation of existing social media technologies – unplatformed design – and its application to real world problems.

Thesis title

Unplatformed Design: Reconceptualising Social Media Technologies as Tools for Coordinated Action, Participation and Engagement

After the PhD

Currently I am working at Kinnu, a new learning app that blends learning science, game design and world-class UX to improve informal education.

Partners

• Northumbria Police and Crime Comissioner
• University of West Indies
• Engagement Lab - Boston
• International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
• Newcastle City Council
• INTERPOL

Internship

Engagement Lab at Emerson College in Boston