Max Kreminski

maxkreminski@gmail.com
mkremins.github.io

Education

2017-2022

University of California, Santa Cruz
Ph.D. in Computational Media (2022)
M.S. in Computational Media (2020)

2013-2017

University of Southern California
B.A. in Interactive Entertainment
Minor in Game User Research

Employment

Since 2023

Midjourney
Research Scientist and Director, Storytelling Lab

2022-2024

Santa Clara University
Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
Faculty Scholar, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

Since 2020

Independent consulting
Clients include Zynga’s Applied AI group and Fable Studio

2017-2022

University of California, Santa Cruz
Graduate Student Researcher, Expressive Intelligence Studio

2016-2017

University of Southern California
Undergraduate Research Associate, Mobile & Environmental Media Lab (F2016-Su2017)
Undergraduate Research Associate, Game Innovation Lab (Su2016)

2015-2017

User Behavioristics
Junior User Researcher

Selected Honors and Awards

2025

Best Paper Honorable Mention [C33], C&C 2025

2025

Invited Participant, Dagstuhl Seminar 25292 New Frontiers in AI for Game Design

2024

Best Paper [C28], C&C 2024

2023

Invited Participant, Polaris Game Design Retreat

2022

Finalist for Best Student Paper [C21], ICIDS 2022

2022

Best Artifact [C20], AIIDE 2022

2022

Resident, Stochastic Labs

2021

Finalist 2× for Best Short Paper [C17, C18], ICIDS 2021

2021

Best Paper [C13], FDG 2021

2021

Best Game or Demo [PD3], FDG 2021

2021

Second Place [W8], Generative Design in Minecraft Competition

2020

Exceptional Paper [C9], FDG 2020
Awarded to top 22% of papers.

2019

Best Paper Honorable Mention [C4], FDG 2019
Awarded to top 17% of full papers.

Publications

Journal Articles

[J2]

Endless Forms Most Similar: The Dearth of the Author in AI-Supported Art.
Max Kreminski.
AI & Society, 2025.

[J1]

Using Self-Determination Theory to Explore Enjoyment of Educational Interactive Narrative Games: A Case Study of Academical.
Katelyn M. Grasse, Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas, Edward F. Melcer.
Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2022.

Conference Papers

[C36]

Modifying Large Language Model Post-Training for Diverse Creative Writing.
John Joon Young Chung, Vishakh Padmakumar, Melissa Roemmele, Yuqian Sun, Max Kreminski.
COLM 2025. 32% acceptance rate.

[C35]

Can LLMs Generate Good Stories? Insights and Challenges from a Narrative Planning Perspective.
Yi Wang, Max Kreminski.
CoG 2025. 36% acceptance rate.

[C34]

Phraselette: A Poet's Procedural Palette.
Alex Calderwood, John Joon Young Chung, Yuqian Sun, Melissa Roemmele, Max Kreminski.
DIS 2025. 24% acceptance rate.

[C33]

Fuzzy Linkography: Automatic Graphical Summarization of Creative Activity Traces.
Amy Smith, Barrett R. Anderson, Jasmine Tan Otto, Isaac Karth, Yuqian Sun, John Joon Young Chung, Melissa Roemmele, Max Kreminski.
C&C 2025. 22% acceptance rate. Best Paper Honorable Mention (top 4%).

[C32]

Scaling Analysis of Creative Activity Traces via Fuzzy Linkography.
Amy Smith, Barrett R. Anderson, Jasmine Tan Otto, Isaac Karth, Yuqian Sun, John Joon Young Chung, Melissa Roemmele, Max Kreminski.
CHI LBW 2025. 33% acceptance rate.

[C31]

Toyteller: AI-Powered Visual Storytelling Through Toy-Playing with Character Symbols.
John Joon Young Chung, Melissa Roemmele, Max Kreminski.
CHI 2025. 25% acceptance rate.

[C30]

Computational Poetry is Lost Poetry.
Max Kreminski.
HTTF 2024. 35% acceptance rate (selected for thematic panel).

[C29]

Patchview: LLM-Powered Worldbuilding with Generative Dust and Magnet Visualization.
John Joon Young Chung, Max Kreminski.
UIST 2024. 24% acceptance rate.

[C28]

Homogenization Effects of Large Language Models on Human Creative Ideation.
Barrett R. Anderson, Jash Hemant Shah, Max Kreminski.
C&C 2024. 21% acceptance rate. Best Paper (top 1%).

[C27]

Evaluating Creativity Support Tools via Homogenization Analysis.
Barrett R. Anderson, Jash Hemant Shah, Max Kreminski.
CHI LBW 2024. 34% acceptance rate.

[C26]

A Design Space for Intelligent and Interactive Writing Assistants.
Mina Lee, Katy Ilonka Gero, John Joon Young Chung, 27 more authors, Max Kreminski, 5 more authors.
CHI 2024. 26% acceptance rate.

[C25]

Praxish: A Rational Reconstruction of a Logic-Based DSL for Modeling Social Practices.
James Dameris, Rosaura Hernandez Roman, Max Kreminski.
AIIDE 2023.

[C24]

Toward Better Gossip Simulation in Emergent Narrative Systems.
Max Kreminski.
CoG 2023.

[C23]

Being Social in VR Meetings: A Landscape Analysis of Current Tools.
Anya Osborne, Sabrina Fielder, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Timothy Lang, Max Kreminski, George Butler, Jialang Victor Li, Diana R. Sanchez, Katherine Isbister.
DIS 2023. 24% acceptance rate.

[C22]

Select the Unexpected: A Statistical Heuristic for Story Sifting.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas.
ICIDS 2022.

[C21]

Constructing a Catbox: Story Volume Poetics in Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
Isaac Karth, Nic Junius, Max Kreminski.
ICIDS 2022. Finalist for Best Student Paper.

[C20]

Loose Ends: A Mixed-Initiative Creative Interface for Playful Storytelling.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas.
AIIDE 2022. Best Artifact.

[C19]

A Coauthorship-Centric History of Interactive Emergent Narrative.
Max Kreminski, Michael Mateas.
ICIDS 2021. 25% acceptance rate.

[C18]

Toward Narrative Instruments.
Max Kreminski, Michael Mateas.
ICIDS 2021. Finalist for Best Short Paper (top 15%).

[C17]

Emergent Narrative and Reparative Play.
Jason Grinblat, Cat Manning, Max Kreminski.
ICIDS 2021. Finalist for Best Short Paper (top 15%).

[C16]

Winnow: A Domain-Specific Language for Incremental Story Sifting.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Michael Mateas.
AIIDE 2021.

[C15]

Reflective Creators.
Max Kreminski, Michael Mateas.
ICCC 2021.

[C14]

A Genre-Specific Game Description Language for Game Boy RPGs.
Tamara Duplantis, Isaac Karth, Max Kreminski, Adam M. Smith, Michael Mateas.
CoG 2021.

[C13]

There Is No Escape: Theatricality in Hades.
Nick Junius, Max Kreminski, Michael Mateas.
FDG 2021. 38% acceptance rate. Best Paper (top 6%).

[C12]

Improving Undergraduate Attitudes Towards Responsible Conduct of Research Through an Interactive Storytelling Game.
Katelyn M. Grasse, Edward F. Melcer, Max Kreminski, Nick Junius, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
CHI LBW 2021. 39% acceptance rate.

[C11]

Germinate: A Mixed-Initiative Casual Creator for Rhetorical Games.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Joseph C. Osborn, Adam Summerville, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
AIIDE 2020. 25% acceptance rate.

[C10]

Why Are We Like This?: The AI Architecture of a Co-Creative Storytelling Game.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
FDG 2020.

[C9]

Getting Academical: A Choice-Based Interactive Storytelling Game for Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research.
Edward F. Melcer, Katelyn M. Grasse, James Ryan, Nick Junius, Max Kreminski, Dietrich Squinkifer, Brent Hill, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
FDG 2020. 36% acceptance rate. Exceptional Paper (top 14%).

[C8]

Why Are We Like This?: Exploring Writing Mechanics for an AI-Augmented Storytelling Game.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
ELO 2020.

[C7]

Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research Through an Interactive Storytelling Game.
Edward F. Melcer, James Ryan, Nick Junius, Max Kreminski, Dietrich Squinkifer, Brent Hill, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
CHI LBW 2020. 42% acceptance rate.

[C6]

Felt: A Simple Story Sifter.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
ICIDS 2019. 30% acceptance rate.

[C5]

Evaluating AI-Based Games Through Retellings.
Max Kreminski, Ben Samuel, Edward Melcer, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
AIIDE 2019. 25% acceptance rate.

[C4]

StoryAssembler: An Engine for Generating Dynamic Choice-Driven Narratives.
Jacob Garbe, Max Kreminski, Ben Samuel, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas.
FDG 2019. 37% acceptance rate. Best Paper Honorable Mention (top 4%).

[C3]

Sketching a Map of the Storylets Design Space.
Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
ICIDS 2018.

[C2]

Immersive Design Fiction: Using VR to Prototype Speculative Interfaces and Interaction Rituals within a Virtual Storyworld.
Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Max Kreminski, Keshav Prasad, Perry Hoberman, Scott S. Fisher.
DIS 2018. 22% acceptance rate.

[C1]

Are Game Design and User Research Guidelines Specific to Virtual Reality Effective in Creating a More Optimal Player Experience? Yes: VR PLAY.
Heather Desurvire, Max Kreminski.
DUXU 2018. 27% acceptance rate.

Book Chapters

[B2]

Authoring for Story Sifters.
Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas.
In The Authoring Problem: Challenges in Supporting Authoring for Interactive Digital Narratives. Springer, 2022.

[B1]

Academical: A Choice-Based Interactive Storytelling Game for Enhancing Moral Reasoning, Knowledge, and Attitudes in Responsible Conduct of Research.
Katelyn M. Grasse, Edward F. Melcer, Max Kreminski, Nick Junius, James Ryan, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
In Games and Narrative: Theory and Practice. Springer, 2021.

Workshop Papers

[W17]

Guiding and Diversifying LLM-Based Story Generation via Answer Set Programming.
Phoebe J. Wang, Max Kreminski.
Wordplay @ ACL 2024.

[W16]

The Dearth of the Author in AI-Supported Writing.
Max Kreminski.
In2Writing @ CHI 2024.

[W15]

Intent Elicitation in Mixed-Initiative Co-Creativity.
Max Kreminski, John Joon Young Chung.
HAI-GEN @ IUI 2024.

[W14]

“Generator’s Haunted”: A Brief, Spooky Account of Hauntological Effects in the Player Experience of Procedural Generation.
Max Kreminski.
PCG @ FDG 2023.

[W13]

AI for AUs: Challenges of Creating Interactive Virtual Characters for Immersive Fanfiction Sandboxes.
Max Kreminski.
Metaverse Workshop @ FDG 2022.

[W12]

Unmet Creativity Support Needs in Computationally Supported Creative Writing.
Max Kreminski, Chris Martens.
In2Writing @ ACL 2022.

[W11]

Reevaluating the Role of Relatedness in Single-Player Roleplaying Games.
Katelyn M. Grasse, Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas, Edward F. Melcer.
SDT-HCI @ CHI 2022.

[W10]

Evaluating Mixed-Initiative Creative Interfaces via Expressive Range Coverage Analysis.
Max Kreminski, Isaac Karth, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
HAI-GEN @ IUI 2022.

[W9]

Opportunities for Approachable Game Development via Program Synthesis.
Max Kreminski, Michael Mateas.
PLIE @ AIIDE 2021.

[W8]

AgentCraft: An Agent-Based Minecraft Settlement Generator.
Ari Iramanesh, Max Kreminski.
EXAG @ AIIDE 2021. Second place in GDMC 2021 (top 10%).

[W7]

Social Superpowers in Social VR: Beyond Approximation of Face-to-face.
Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Anya Osborne, Max Kreminski, Sean Fernandes, Sabrina Fielder, Victor Li, Tym Lang, Katherine Isbister.
SocialVR @ CHI 2021.

[W6]

Toward Example-Driven Program Synthesis of Story Sifting Patterns.
Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas.
INT @ AIIDE 2020.

[W5]

Tabletop Roleplaying Games as Procedural Content Generators.
Matthew Guzdial, Devi Acharya, Max Kreminski, Michael Cook, Mirjam Eladhari, Antonios Liapis, Anne Sullivan.
PCG @ FDG 2020.

[W4]

Generative Games as Storytelling Partners.
Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
UX of AI @ FDG 2019.

[W3]

Cozy Mystery Construction Kit: Prototyping Toward an AI-Assisted Collaborative Storytelling Mystery Game.
Max Kreminski, Devi Acharya, Nick Junius, Elisabeth Oliver, Kate Compton, Melanie Dickinson, Cyril Focht, Stacey Mason, Stella Mazeika, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
PCG @ FDG 2019.

[W2]

Generators that Read.
Max Kreminski, Isaac Karth, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
PCG @ FDG 2019.

[W1]

Gardening Games: An Alternative Philosophy of PCG in Games.
Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
PCG @ FDG 2018.

Playable Experiences and Demos

[PD10]

Supporting Material Writing Practice with Phraselette, a Palette of Phrases.
Alex Calderwood, Taewook Kim, Yuqian Sun, Melissa Roemmele, John Joon Young Chung, Max Kreminski.
DIS 2025.

[PD9]

Toyteller: Toy-Playing with Character Symbols for AI-Powered Visual Storytelling.
John Joon Young Chung, Melissa Roemmele, Max Kreminski.
UIST 2024.

[PD8]

Cheap and Easy Open-Ended Text Input for Interactive Emergent Narrative.
Max Kreminski.
FDG 2024.

[PD7]

Blabrecs: An AI-Based Game of Nonsense Word Creation.
Max Kreminski, Isaac Karth.
NeurIPS Creative AI 2023.

[PD6]

A Demonstration of Loose Ends, a Mixed-Initiative Narrative Instrument.
Max Kreminski, Melanie Dickinson, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas.
ICIDS 2022.

[PD5]

Conversation Balance: A Shared VR Visualization to Support Turn-taking in Meetings.
Jialang Victor Li, Max Kreminski, Sean M. Fernandes, Anya Osborne, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Katherine Isbister.
CHI Interactivity 2022.

[PD4]

A Demonstration of Blabrecs, an AI-Based Wordgame.
Max Kreminski, Isaac Karth.
AIIDE 2021.

[PD3]

Generating Playable RPG ROMs for the Game Boy.
Isaac Karth, Tamara Duplantis, Max Kreminski, Sachita Kashyap, Vijaya Kukutla, Aaron Lo, Anika Mittal, Harvin Park, Adam M. Smith.
FDG 2021. Best Game or Demo (top 16%).

[PD2]

Playable Experiences at the 16th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment.
Melanie Dickinson, Max Kreminski, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Sabine Wieluch.
AIIDE 2020.

[PD1]

Throwing Bottles at God: Predictive Text as a Game Mechanic in an AI-Based Narrative Game.
Max Kreminski, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
ICIDS 2018.

Other Publications

[OP6]

Scaffolding Recursive Divergence and Convergence in Story Ideation.
Taewook Kim, Matthew Kay, Yuqian Sun, Melissa Roemmele, Max Kreminski, John Joon Young Chung.
Preprint, 2025.

[OP5]

Drama Llama: An LLM-Powered Storylets Framework for Authorable Responsiveness in Interactive Narrative.
Yuqian Sun, Phoebe J. Wang, John Joon Young Chung, Melissa Roemmele, Taewook Kim, Max Kreminski.
Preprint, 2025.

[OP4]

Understanding Systems Suspense.
Jason Grinblat, Max Kreminski, Graeme Lennon, Cat Manning, Alexei Pepers, Lauren Scott.
Report from the Polaris Game Design Retreat, 2024.

[OP3]

Narrative Instruments: AI-Based Playable Media for Storytelling.
Max Kreminski.
UCSC PhD thesis, 2022.

[OP2]

Designing to Support Authorship Play in Emergent Narrative Games.
Max Kreminski.
UCSC MS thesis, 2020.

[OP1]

Creativity Support for Story Construction Play Experiences.
Max Kreminski.
AIIDE DC, 2019.

Grants and Fellowships

2023

Investigating Homogenization of Imagination by Generative AI Models. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Hackworth Faculty Research Grant. $5,000. PI.

2022-2023

A Neurosymbolic Approach to Creativity Support for Narrative Writing. SCU University Research Grant. $5,000. PI.

2022-2025

Innovating Online Ethics Training Using a Dynamic Narrative Learning Environment. NSF RETTL. $849,964. Proposal coauthor (with PI Edward Melcer, co-PI Michael Mateas, co-PI Noah Wardrip-Fruin). Not listed as awardee due to student status at proposal submission time.

2022

Graduate Dean’s Research Travel Grant. UCSC Division of Graduate Studies. $400.

2021

Investigating Instrumental Uses of Interactive Narrative Systems. UCSC Computational Media Department. $8,973. PI.

2020-2024

Social Virtual Reality Technology to Improve Networked Meetings. NSF CHS. $373,142. Proposal coauthor and supported PhD student (with PI Katherine Isbister). Not listed as awardee due to student status at proposal submission time.

2019

AIIDE 2019 Travel Grant. AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE). $1,900.

2017-2018

University of California Chancellor’s Fellowship. University of California. $24,000 stipend plus one year of full tuition remission.

Invited Talks and Panels

2025

Creative AI: Lensing the Imagination
Upper Bound

Interaction Techniques for Sculpting Expressive Text
NAACL Workshop on Intelligent and Interactive Writing Assistants (In2Writing)

Computational Evaluation of (Co-)Creative Interfaces
CHI Workshop on Designing and Developing User Interfaces with AI (Computational UI)

Tracing and Shaping Paths in Design Space
HCI Seminar, Columbia University

Guest lecturer, Worldbuilding
AI and Storytelling (Prof. Lydia Chilton), Columbia University

Panelist, “Ask Me Anything” Faculty Panel
Bay Area HCI Gathering, University of California, Berkeley

Tracing and Shaping Paths in Design Space
Department of Design Tech, Cornell University

Guest lecturer, Designing AI-Based Play
DES INV 211 Designing Emerging Technologies (Prof. Sarah Rosenbach), University of California, Berkeley

Panelist, Emergent Narratives in Games: The State of Affairs
Concordia University

Drama Llama and the Dearth of the Author
Expressive Intelligence Studio, University of California, Santa Cruz

Creative AI: Lensing the Imagination
Department of Design Tech, Cornell Tech

2024

Creative AI: Lensing the Imagination
Berkeley Institute of Design, University of California, Berkeley

Guest lecturer, Novel Interfaces for Creative Text Generation
CMSC 491/691 Interactive Fiction and Text Generation (Prof. Lara Martin), University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Panelist, AI Researchers + Consumer Founders
Lightspeed Venture Partners

Guest lecturer, Interactive Narrative: From Emergence to Coauthorship
AI for Experience Design (Prof. Mirjam Eladhari), Stockholm University

Multimodal Inputs for Controllable Story Generation
Interpretability, Steering, and Interfaces Demo Night, South Park Commons

Mutating Text Toward Better Nonsense?!
!!Con

Creativity Support Tools
GenAI for Novel UX Study Group, Santa Clara University

Panelist, Creativity in the Era of Large Language Models
NAACL Workshop on Figurative Language Processing (FigLang)

Creative AI: Lensing the Imagination
Microsoft Research Asia

AI for Storytelling: Lensing the Imagination
Autodesk Research

Panelist, “Ask Me Anything” Faculty Panel
Bay Area HCI Gathering, Stanford University

Creative AI: Lensing the Imagination
AI & Storytelling Talks, University of California, Davis

Blabrecs: Weirding Language with AI-Based Gameplay
Experimental Game Workshop (EGW), Game Developers Conference (GDC)

Storytelling Research at Midjourney
Remarkable AI, Santa Cruz Works

2023

Panelist, Career Advice for New Faculty
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE)

Designing AI-Based Play
Otter Jam, California State University, Monterey Bay

Guest lecturer, Reflective Creators
GSND 6460 Generative Game Design (Prof. Chris Martens), Northeastern University

“Play” as in “Instrument”: Creativity Support Tools and Game Design
Entertainment Arts and Engineering Lecture Series, University of Utah

2022

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
School of Arts, Media and Engineering, Arizona State University

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
Department of Computational Arts, York University

Narrative Instruments and Story Sifting
Fable Studio

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
School of Interactive Games and Media, Rochester Institute of Technology

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Santa Clara University

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
Department of Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University

2021

Creativity Support via Story Sifting
Computer Science Colloquium Series, University of New Orleans

Guest lecturer, Story Sifting
CS 660 Topics in Artificial Intelligence: Interactive Narrative (Prof. Stephen Ware), University of Kentucky

Toward Narrative Instruments
Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives (ARDIN)

2020

Panelist, Murder Mysteries as a Grand Challenge in Computational Storytelling
AIIDE Workshop on Intelligent Narrative Technologies (INT)

Synthesizing Story Sifters
Roguelike Celebration

Panelist, Games as Story Generators
Foundations of Digital Games (FDG)

AI Support for Player Storytelling in Digital Games
Animal Crossing AI Workshop (ACAI)

2019

Sifting Stories to Support Player Storytelling
Roguelike Celebration

Approachable Authoring Tools for Simulation-Driven Interactive Storyworlds
UCSC Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS)

Panelist, Changes over the last 10 years in PCG research and practice
FDG Workshop on Procedural Content Generation (PCG)

Exploring Poemspace Through Procedural Erasure
Computational Poetry Workshop

Procedural Narrative Design with Parametrized Storylets
Tech Toolbox microtalks, Game Developers Conference (GDC)

Procedural Narrative Design with Parametrized Storylets
Experimental AI for Games microtalks, Game Developers Conference (GDC)

Making blackout poetry with computers!
!!Con West

2018

Gardening as a Mode of Play
Roguelike Celebration

Gardening as a Mode of Play
Queerness and Games Conference (QGCon)

Proceduralizing Character Development with Parametrized Storylets
UCSC Games Showcase

2017

Crafting Compelling Character Arcs for Procedurally Generated Characters
Roguelike Celebration

Art Exhibitions

This section lists exhibitions without an accompanying academic publication. For exhibitions with an associated publication, see “Playable Experiences and Demos” above.

2023

Generative Advent, curated by Rianna Suen and Mike Cook. Online.

2020

(un)continuity, Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) Conference. Orlando, Florida.

2018

QGCon 2018 Arcade, Queerness and Games Conference (QGCon). Montreal, Quebec.

2018

Now Play This – A Festival of Experimental Game Design. London, England.

2016

Winteractive Festival, USC School of Cinematic Arts. Los Angeles, California.

Teaching

Santa Clara University

Sp2023

COEN 266 Artificial Intelligence
Highest possible median student evaluation scores (5/5) in all categories.

W2023

COEN 296 Creativity Support Tools

W2023

COEN 174 Software Engineering

F2022

COEN 174 Software Engineering

University of California, Santa Cruz (as Instructor)

Su2021

CMPM 148 Interactive Storytelling

W2021

CMPM 171 Game Design Studio II

University of California, Santa Cruz (as Teaching Assistant)

Sp2022

CMPM 172 Game Design Studio III

W2022

CMPM 171 Game Design Studio II

Sp2020

CMPM 172 Game Design Studio III

W2020

CMPM 171 Game Design Studio II

F2019

CMPM 170 Game Design Studio I

Su2019

CMPM 147 Generative Design

W2019

CMPM 80K Foundations of Video Game Design

F2018

CMPM 176 Game Systems

Su2018

CMPM 80K Foundations of Video Game Design

Conference Tutorials

2023

Introduction to WaveFunctionCollapse @ CoG 2023

Mentoring and Advising

Visiting Researchers

2025

Shm Almeda (UC Berkeley PhD student). Creativity support tools for interactive storytelling.

2025

Yuwen Lu (Notre Dame PhD student). Applied machine learning for creativity support.

2025

Brett Halperin (UW PhD student). Visual storytelling.

2024

Alex Calderwood (UCSC PhD student). Phraselette, a generative “phrase palette” for poets and other creative writers; based on unusual LLM sampling techniques [C34, PD10].

2024

Taewook Kim (Northwestern PhD student). Reverger, a “mutant shopping” interface for the rapid interactive revision of expressive text via large language models [OP6].

PhD Students (as Committee Member)

Since 2025

Lasantha Senanayake (University of Kentucky). Neurosymbolic approaches to narrative planning; comparisons of “strong story” versus “strong autonomy” approaches to narrative interactivity.

Master’s Students

2023-2024

Phoebe J. Wang. Guiding large language models to generate more semantically diverse stories via answer set programming [W17].

2023

Jash Hemant Shah. Human-centered evaluation of large language models as support tools for creative ideation [C27, C28].

Undergraduate Students

2022-2023

James Dameris; Rosaura Hernandez Roman. Praxish, a partial reconstruction of the lost interactive drama framework Versu [C25].

2021

Ari Iramanesh. AgentCraft, an entry for the Generative Design in Minecraft (GDMC) AI Settlement Generation Competition [W8].

2020

Camille Miller. Paper Hearts, an approachable digital game creation tool inspired by queer games and flatgames.

2019

Anthony Medina; Katie Moses. Data collection and coding for a qualitative study of human-AI co-creativity in emergent narrative games [C5].

High School Students (via the UCSC Science Internship Program)

2019

Megna Anand; Anish Kashyap; Daniel Man; Akhil Vemuri. Contributions to the AI-based research game Diarytown [C6].

Service

Conference and Workshop Organization

2025

Case Studies Co-Chair, AIIDE 2025

2025

Track Chair, Game Artificial Intelligence, FDG 2025

2024

Artifacts Chair, AIIDE 2024

2024

Keynotes Chair, FDG 2024

2023

Session Chair, Case Studies, AIIDE 2023

2022

Area Co-Chair, Tools and Systems, ICIDS 2022

2021

Co-Organizer, Queer in AI Social @ AIIDE 2021

Since 2021

Steering Committee Member, EXAG @ AIIDE

2020

Publicity Co-Chair, AIIDE 2020

2020

Co-Organizer, EXAG @ AIIDE 2020

2020

Co-Organizer, Casual Creators Workshop @ ICCC 2020

2019

Demonstrations Chair, ICIDS 2019

2019

Co-Organizer, EXAG @ AIIDE 2019

2019

Co-Organizer, Computery Zine Fest @ !!Con West 2019

Reviewing and Program Committee Membership

Journals

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS)
AI & Society (AI&S)
Nature Human Behavior (NatHumBehav)
Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR)
IEEE Transactions on Games (ToG)
Entertainment Computing (EntCom)

Conferences

ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)
↳ Recognized 4× for Outstanding Review.
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)
↳ Recognized 1× for Outstanding Review.
ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS)
↳ Recognized 2× for Outstanding Review.
ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition (C&C)
ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY)
Halfway to the Future Symposium (HTTF)
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE)
International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS)
↳ Recognized as Best Reviewer (2020).
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG)
↳ Recognized for Exceptional Service (2023).
IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)
International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC)
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART)
IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI)

Workshops

Workshop on Intelligent and Interactive Writing Assistants (In2Writing)
FDG Workshop on Procedural Content Generation (PCG)
AIIDE Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (EXAG)
AIIDE Workshop on Programming Languages and Interactive Entertainment (PLIE)
Workshop on Casual Creators (CasCre)
FDG Workshop on Human-AI Interaction Through Play
ICSE Workshop on Games and Software Engineering (GAS)