About
I’m a researcher in artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and creativity. I primarily design and develop AI-based creativity support tools to assist human designers and artists, particularly in the domains of storytelling, poetry, and game design. As an interdisciplinary scholar with a background in technical games research, I’ve also worked on a wide variety of topics related to interactive narrative and digital games.
Currently, I’m a research scientist at Midjourney, where I lead the Storytelling Lab. Before that, from 2022-2024, I was an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Santa Clara University. I hold a Ph.D. in Computational Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I was a member of the Expressive Intelligence Studio. In the past, I’ve also been a resident at Stochastic Labs; a consultant at various game industry and tech companies; and a researcher in several labs, most notably the Mobile & Environmental Media Lab, at the University of Southern California.
Here’s a complete list of my papers (current count: 63; awards and nominations: 10). You can also check out my full CV for links to many of my talks and other output.
Selected projects and papers
🗣️ Talks: Autodesk Research, South Park Commons
🤝 With: John Joon Young Chung, Melissa Roemmele
🗞️ Press: Digital Frontier
🤝 With: Barrett Anderson, Jash Shah, Isaac Karth
🗣️ Talks: !!Con 2024, GDC 2024 (skip to 1:51:00)
🗞️ Press: New Scientist, The Next Web, Dicebreaker
🤝 With: Isaac Karth
🗞️ Press: The Verge
🤝 With: Melanie Dickinson
🤝 With: Eddie Melcer, Katy Grasse, Nic Junius, many others
🗣️ Talks: !!Con West 2019, Computational Poetry Workshop 2019
🤝 With: Josh McVeigh-Schultz, Katherine Isbister, many others