Faculty

All GameDev faculty are part of the Department of Media & Information at Michigan State University.

Brian Winn

GEL Lab Director, Professor
EMAIL // TWITTER // BIO

Brian is the Founder and Director of the Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) Lab at Michigan State University. Winn is also a Professor in the Department of Media and Information.

Jeremy Bond

Professor of Practice
EMAIL // BIO

Jeremy is the author of Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game in Unity and C#, a book on game design and prototyping using Unity that was released in the summer of 2014 and, since then, has consistently been one of the top-selling game design books and Unity development books on Amazon.com

Susan Bonner

Associate Professor
EMAIL // ARTSTATION // BIO // WEBSITE

She is the creator of The Road Crew Social Emotional Health Game, which aims to teach young children coping skills for anger, loneliness, and anxiety through an AR experience. Accessible, universal, and inclusive design is at the heart of her teaching, art, design, and the work she produces.

Amanda Cote

Associate Professor and Director of the Serious Games Certificate
EMAIL // BIO

Amanda researches the industry and culture of games, with an emphasis on areas such as gender, identity, and representation; game development and labor; and collegiate eSports.

Andrew Dennis

Professor of Practice
EMAIL // TWITTER // BIO // WEBSITE

Andrew is an artist, designer and instructor at Michigan State University. Andrew is a CG generalist who currently teaches courses covering modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, look dev, environment design, character art, game art, architectural visualization, 3d printing, and more.

Ricardo Guimaraes

Professor of Practice
EMAIL // BIO // WEBSITE

Ricardo is an Illustrator and Concept Artist with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts (Traditional Painting). He easily produces Speedpaintings, Matte Paintings, all in a great variety of styles and subjects. He previous worked as a Character Artist for Bilzzard’s “Diablo III” Intro Cinematics.

Cory Heald

Professor of Practice
EMAIL // BIO

Cory Heald holds an MA in Interactive Design and Game Development from SCAD and has over 20 years of industry experience in the creative field. This journey started by producing visual sales applications and content for companies Herman Miller, Dell, Cisco Systems, and Lands End. Later the focus shifted to the entertainment industry with clients including Disney, Zynga, Nickelodeon, and Jakks Pacific Toys.

Robby Ratan Ph.D.

Associate Professor
EMAIL // BIO

Dr. Ratan’s research focuses primarily on the psychological experience of media use, with an emphasis on video games and other interactive environments.

Casey O'Donnell Ph.D.

Associate Professor
EMAIL // TWITTER // BIO // WEBSITE

His research examines the creative collaborative work of videogame design and development and examines the cultural and collaborative dynamics that occur in both professional “AAA” organizations and formal and informal “independent” game development communities.

Wei Peng Ph.D.

Associate Professor
EMAIL // BIO

Wei’s primary research interest is to understand how to better use interactive technologies to influence human behaviors. Her recent projects focus on using digital games for health promotion, health education, and social change. Her broader research area is the social and psychological effects of information and communication technology.

Ryan Thompson, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

EMAIL // BIO

Ryan Thompson holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Minnesota. As a scholar, his research focuses on intersections between gameplay and audio – instances in which the music is used as a means to communicate gameplay information to a player.

Valeta Wensloff

Undergraduate Director & Internship Coordinator

EMAIL // BIO

Valeta teaches classes and evangelizes for the department by disseminating information about faculty projects, grants, events such as Meaningful Play, and classes.

Retired Faculty

Carrie Heeter Ph.D.

Retired Professor
TWITTER // BIO

Carrie taught foundations of serious games and human-centered experience design courses. She was the first Director of the Serious Games MA Certificate Program.