Supervisors

IGGI now includes Queen Mary, University of London. The list of the new potential IGGI supervisors based at Queen Mary can be found here.

You should choose a potential supervisor whose research interests match your own. We encourage you to contact your chosen supervisor for an informal chat – this will also help you to put together your research proposal, which is an integral part of your application.

You should only apply to the institution at which your chosen supervisor is based once you have been recommended for a place on the IGGI programme. This applies whether you are recommended for a studentship or an alternatively funded place. Please visit the Apply page for further details of the process.

The filters will allow you to select potential supervisors based on their home institution or where they fit into the research themes of IGGI.

To contact your chosen supervisor, click on their name to send them an email.

Professor Richard Bartle

Co-wrote first multi-user dungeon, the progenitor of modern MMORPGs. Invented the Bartle Test for Gamer Personality Type, taken by more than 750,000 people. A leading figure in the industry.
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Dr Paul Cairns

Human-computer interaction and games. Psychology of game players. Research methods.
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Professor Simon Colton

Computational creativity, content generation, game HCI.
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Professor Peter Cowling

Director of IGGI and the DC Labs. Strong games industry links. Artificial Intelligence (AI) for mobile and video games – particularly Monte Carlo Tree Search. Gamification/Games for Science and Society.
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Dr Sebastian Deterding

Strong UX and gamification industry links. Gamification, gameful and playful design, motivational design, social norms and interactions around games and play
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Dr Sam Devlin

Artificial Intelligence (AI), data mining and machine learning for digital games and interactive media
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Dr Jeremy Gow

Computational creativity, game analytics and Human Computer Interaction
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Professor Udo Kruschwitz

Excellent industrial links, Games With a Purpose (GWAP), Natural Language Processing.
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Professor William Latham

Game graphics; substantial industry experience; project management for games.
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Professor Simon Lucas

Founding Editor-in-Chief IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. Co-Founder of IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games. A leading academic in the field with three prizes for games related work and more than 40 publications in the area.
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Dr Diego Perez

Computational Intelligence for Games. Reinforcement learning. Evolutionary Computation. General Video Game AI
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Professor Atau Tanaka

Interactivity in music
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Professor Marian Ursu

Strong creative industries links. Interactive media. Interactive narratives. Intelligent audio-video-centred communication.
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Dr Freida Abtan Music
Music computing, audio-visual composition
Dr Patricia Alessandrini Music
Interactivity in Music and Multimedia
Dr Rob Alexander Computer Science
Robot simulation and “red-teaming” for robot control software safety & robustness using game AI techniques
Dr Gareth Beale Centre for Digital Heritage & the Digital Creativity Labs
Games for heritage and museums with a particular interest in community participation in development and production
Dr David Beer Sociology
Sociology of digital data and big data, mobile media and the relations between popular culture and by-product data.
Professor Mark Bishop Director TCIDA/ Computing
Artificial intelligence, Analytics, Embodied Cognition, Enactivism & Cybernetics.
Dr Tim Blackwell Computing
Complexity; dynamical systems; digital art and music, swarm intelligence.
Dr Florian Block Theatre, Film and Television/ Digital Creativity Labs
Data-Driven Content Creation in Esports; Data Analytics in Esports; Data-Driven Creativity; Interactive Data Visualisatin for Learning and Public Engagement.
Dr Andy Bremner Psychology
Object knowledge, spatial representation, body representation, multi-sensory perception, learning and cognitive control, in childhood.
Dr Luca Citi Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Brain Computer Interfaces and Games, Data mining, game analytics.
Dr Adrian Clark Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Virtual Reality, Computer Vision, Computer Graphics.
Professor Edward Codling Maths
Use of games to understand complex crowd and swarm behaviours (Organiser of Theoretical Ecology and Complex Systems (TECS) seminar series).
Professor Tim Crawford Computing
Music information retrieval
Dr James Cussens Computer Science
Machine learning particular Bayesian methods and graphical models. Applying discrete optimisation algorithms to machine learning. Statistical methods in artificial intelligence.
Professor Mark d'Inverno Computing
Multi-agent systems for online cultural experiences
Professor Teresa da Silva Lopes The York Management School
Marketing of games. Business models. Games With A Purpose (GW AP).
Dr Kate Devlin Computing
Illumination models for graphics, interaction design
Prof Anders Drachen DC Labs/ Computer Science
Game Analytics, data mining, machine learning, game development, business and business intelligence, supply chain analytics, Human-Computer Interaction and Game User Research, user experience.
Professor John Drever Music
Soundscapes, acoustic ecology, acoustics
Dr Michael Fairbank School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Neural networks and Deep Learning. Adaptive Dynamic Programming + Reinforcement Learning. Optimisation. Control Theory. Financial Forecasting. AI in games.
Professor Maria Fasli Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Market Based Economic Games, Game Trading Competitions.
Dr Rebecca Fiebrink Computing
Creative applications of machine learning; gestural and embodied interaction; accessibility and personalised interaction
Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie Computing
Strong games industry links. Procedural game content genesis. 3D graphics and vision. Gamification. Scientific visualisation.
Dr Dan Franks Computer Science/Biology/York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
Interested in using coevolutionary algorithms for game intelligence, and in developing games to address scientific questions.
Professor Jonathan Freeman Psychology
presence, user experience of digital media, restorative media, social media, gaming, digital inclusion, usability and accessibility, attitudinal consumer segmentations, future media, innovation
Professor Matthew Fuller Cultural Studies
Software studies, computational culture
Dr Jennifer Gabrys Sociology
Science and technology studies, digital media, rnateriality, environments and environmental change, urbanism, creative practice, participation inventive methods.
Professor Andrea Galeotti Economics
Study of Network Games, Economic Game Theory, Recipient of 5 Year ERC Fellowship Grant, Editorial Board of Several Economics Journals.
Dr Michael Gardner Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Games and virtual reality, games and education.
Dr Marco Gillies Computing
Virtual Reality, Virtual Humans, Interactive Machine Learning, Body and Movement based Interaction Techniques.
Dr Mick Grierson Computing
Audiovisual interaction, cognition and perception, signal processing, brain-computer interfaces
Dr Murray Griffin Biology
Games for Rehabilitation (with successful clinical trials)
Professor Dongbing Gu Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Reinforcement Learning and Robotics, Use of Games as Complex Virtual Environments for studying Machine Learning.
Graham Harwood Cultural Studies
Interactive media.
Dr Jon Hook Theatre, Film and Television & Digital Creativity Labs
Novel forms of interaction for games (e.g. augmented reality); tools and interfaces for game creation; the intersection of games and live performance.
Professor Huosheng Hu Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Robotics, famous for Robotic Fish (featured on BBC News, London Aquarium}, Robotic Games (e.g. RoboCup). Novel methods for man-machine interaction.
Professor Janis Jefferies Computing
The impact of technology on the arts (textiles, sound, curating, design and literature)
Dr Yuan Ju Economics
Mechanism design for economic games. Fair division, bargaining and negotiation protocols. Experimental game theory.
Dr Dimitar Kazakov Computer Science
Adaptive and learning agents for games. Evolution of cooperation, communication and foraging strategies in game environments. Natural language processing and language games. Games and financial forecasting for stock market simulations.
Dr Gavin Kearney Electronics
Sound and audio processing for virtual environments. Spatial Audio and surround sound. Interactive audio systems. Virtual Acoustics.
Dr Ben Kirman Theatre, Film and Television/ Digital Creativity Labs
Unconventional gameful/playful interfaces, locative/pervasive games, critical game design
Dr Daniel Kudenko Computer Science
Strong games industry links. Artificial Intelligence (AI). Machine Learning. Game Analytics.
Dr Gustav Kuhn Psychology
Professor Richard Law Biology/York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
multiplayer games to understand/train sustainable and economic use of shared resources, especially in fisheries.
Dr Debbie Maxwell Theatre, Film and Television
Interactive media; user experience; traditional storytelling; knowledge exchange; codesign; ethnography; design methods; community engagement.
Professor Klaus McDonald-Maier Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Embedded systems, novel hardware architectures, measuring emotional responses.
Dr Fiona McNab Psychology
Using games to better understand the limitations of working memory, how distractors are ignored and how these change across the lifespan, with implications for cognitive training.
Dr Daniel Mullensiefen Psychology
Music and sound perception
Dr Damian Murphy Electronics/ Digital Creativity Labs
Interactive acoustic environments, room acoustics measurement and simualtion, auralization, acoustic modelling and evaluation, spatial audio rendering.
Dr Jenna Ng Theatre, Film and Television
Film and interactive media; digital media convergence; machinima; game aesthetics, narrative, affect
Dr Mihalis Nicolaou Computing
Machine learning and computer vision, particularly motivated by problems arising in the audio-visual analysis of affective behaviour under real-world conditions.
Dr Nikolay Nikolaev Computing
Machine learning and artificial intelligence
Dr James Ohene-Djan Computing
Interaction design and assistive technologies.
Dr Sylvia Xueni Pan Computing
Immersive Virtual Reality; Cognitive Neuroscience; Social Interaction; Training and psychotherapy; Character Animation
Dr Sandra Pauletto Theatre, Film and Television
Sound design; Auditory displays; Sound synthesis and processing; Interactive audio; Sound design for Cinema and Television; Cinematic and synthetic voice.
Professor Alan Pickering Psychology
Biological and cognitive correlates of personality, statistics, neural networks and other formal models, cognitive control, category learning.
Dr Jon Pitchford Biology
multiplayer games to understand/train sustainable and economic use of shared resources, especially in fisheries.
Professor Massimo Poesio Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Expert in natural language processing, Games With a Purpose (GWAP).
Professor Riccardo Poli Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Genetic Programming, games and emergent behaviour.
Dr Chris Power Computer Science
Interactive systems for disabled and older adult users. Interactive systems for digital cultural heritage. Evaluation of interactive systems.
Dr Ida Pu Computing
Algorithmics and collective intelligence
Dr Philip Quinlan Psychology
Integrating learning to read in gaming apps. In particular helping boys learn to read
Dr Christophe Rhodes Computing
Compiler design and implementation; colour theory and perception; audio, music and multimedia informatics.
Dr Elva Robinson Biology /York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
Using games in behavioural ecology to explore competing social behavioural strategies e.g. in collective decision-making, foraging.
Dr Paul Schweinzer Economics
Mechanism design for economic games. Experimental game theory.
Dr Francisco Sepulveda Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Brain Computer Interfaces and Games.
Dr Stephen Smith Electronics/York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
Manager of Complex City Apps. Games With A Purpose (GW AP). Interactive tasks for the assessment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr William Smith Computer Science
Content capture for animation and games, photorealistic rendering, 3D graphics.
Dr Daniel Stamate Computing
Data science and analytics
Professor Susan Stepney Computer Science/York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
Gamification: Using games to do and publicise complex systems science.
Dr Matt Taylor Biology
Games for Rehabilitation (research already supported by successful clinical trials).
Andy Thomason Computing
Compiler design and games programming; substantial industry experience.
Professor Jon Timmis Electronics/York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
Using machine learning approaches in collective decision making for autonomous systems.
Professor Edward Tsang Centre for Computational Finance and Economic Agents/Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Constrained Satisfaction, Computational Finance and Game Theory.
Dr Alexei Vernitski Maths
Design of novel mathematical games and puzzles
Professor Alex Wade Psychology/ Digital Creativity Labs
Expert in human neuroimaging. Ongoing collaboration with Riot Games to evaluate personality traits from huge quantities of gameplay data.
Dr Jez Wells Electronics/Music
Music signal modelling and effects processing, public engagement.
Dr Jamie Wood Maths/Biology/York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
Using games to do as well as disseminate science. Current interests in animal behaviour and synthetic biology.
Dr John Woods Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Robotics and Games, Games in Education.
Dr Matthew Yee-King Computing
Education technology, creative musical Ais, computer Music, automatic sound synthesizer programming, genetic algorithms, interactive music systems.
Professor Qingfu Zhang Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Evolutionary Algorithms, Multi-Objective Optimisation and Games.
Professor Robert Zimmer Head of Computing
New media psychology, culture mining, machine haptics.