News
SIAT Faculty Member in Juried Show
Aaron Oldenburg, a Baltimore-based digital artist and video game designer who will begin teaching in the University of Baltimore's School of Information Arts and Technologies this fall, has been selected to exhibit an interactive work at the Association for Computer Machinery's ACM SIGGRAPH, the major international conference on computer graphics. Oldenburg’s project, "The Mischief of Created Things," will be included in "Slow Art," a juried exhibition of new media art presented at the conference. It will take place Aug. 11-15 in Los Angeles. Competition for SIGGRAPH exhibition is intense, and selection is a significant honor.
"The Mischief of Created Things" is an interactive environmental narrative dealing with new images of West Africa and philosophies of computer game design. The content was based on Oldenburg's two years as a development worker in Mali. The imagery revolves around allowing the player to find the "magic" in the mundane, hybrid/traditional Malian and Western culture. The narrative overlaps between magic and technology. Oldenburg created the work in fulfillment of his Master of Fine Arts degree in Imaging and Digital Art at UMBC.
Oldenburg will join the School of Information Arts and Technologies as an assistant professor in August. He will teach courses in computer graphics, game design, and digital culture, chiefly in the B.S. program in Simulation and Digital Entertainment.
In addition to his master's degree from UMBC, Oldenburg also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University. He has participated in a number of group exhibitions and screenings, both in the United States and abroad. He also has done freelance work for MTV Networks' site AddictingGames.com.
SIAT Spring 2008 Lecture Series
The Information Technology Breakdown! The Homeland in Peril
Speaker - Michael Greenberger
Thursday, February 21st, 6-8PM, Business Center - Room 143
Michael Greenberger is the Director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) at the University of Maryland and a professor at the School of Law.
The talk will address the critical deficiencies within the homeland security information technology infrastructure which, if not fixed, means that national security, policy and funding will be for naught.
On Games and The Industry
Speaker: Brian Reynolds
Wednesday, March 12th, 7-9PM, Business Center Room 003
This talk will bring you up to date in game design and the game industry.
Brian Reynolds is the Founder and Creative Director of Big Huge Games. Crowned by PC Gamer magazine as one of twenty-five “Game Gods."
XNA Game Studio Express Development
Speaker: Cy Khormaee
Friday, April 4th, 7-8PM, Shady Grove Building III, Rm 3241 (Shady Grove Campus)
Cy Khormaee is currently an Academic Developer Evangelist for the Microsoft Corporate.
LAN Party
Friday, April 4th, 8-10PM, Shady Grove Building III, Rm 2215 (Shady Grove Campus)
Play computer games with your friends!
Social Networking
Speaker: Cy Khormaee
Monday, April 7th, 7-9PM, Student Center Theater & Multi Purpose Room, Room 501
Cy Khormaee is currently an Academic Developer Evangelist for the Microsoft Corporate.
Spring 2008 Games Presentations
Thursday, May 15th, 6:30-9PM, Student Center Theater & Multi Purpose Room, Room 501
All events are free and open to the public
IDIA - Interaction Design & Information Architecture
UB Student Awarded 2006 IAI Process Grant
November 1st, 2006
IDIA graduate student Celeste Lyn Paul has been awarded the Information Architecture Institute's 2006 Process Grant. The $1000 grant will fund an investigation of a new approach to card-sorting involving the Delphi method.
Relevant link: http://iainstitute.org/news/000510.php
SDE - Simulation and Digital Entertainment
SDE Students Find Jobs in Game Companies
Joseph Craig, SDE graduate Spring 2008, is employed by CCP Games, Inc. in Stone Mountain, GA, producers of EVE Online. This deep space game was published in May 2003 and has been consistently growing since launch. EVE Online has won numerous awards and has received critical acclaim worldwide.
Rat Ratanapol, SDE student, is working as a graphics artist for New World Edutainment, a division of New World Management in Towson, MD.
SDE Student Hired at Big Huge Games/THQ
Dakota LeMaster, Fall 2008 and SDE Outstanding Student for Academic Year 2008, was a former game design intern at Big Huge Games in Timonium. He recently scored a big hit and was hired on as a full time designer after only three months as an intern. According to Lindsey McQueeney, Big Huge Games/THQ recruiter, "Dakota LeMaster has been interning here for about three months and recently we hired him on as a fulltime employee of THQ/Big Huge Games because of the outstanding work he has done here. The normal intern position lasts six months."
SDE Students and Faculty Featured on Fox 45 News Cover Story
On January 31, 2008, Fox 45 News in Baltimore featured SDE's use of the online simulation
Second Life in professor Damian Hart's Applied Simulation class. SDE students Tom Brandon and Mat Girdley as well as professor Kathleen Harmeyer
appeared in the segment.
Relevant link:
http://www.foxbaltimore.com/players/news/cover_story/vid_217.shtml
SDE Faculty's Courseware Referenced in MIT's Open Courseware Project
SDE professor Kathleen Harmeyer studied Usabilty in Game Design for her doctoral project while
a student in UB's DCD program. A product of that study was the COSC 324 Usability in Game Design course.
The Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has listed her online materials in their Open Courseware Archive.
The MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of course materials used at MIT. Dr. Alice Robison, posted a
link to the COSC 324 materials for use in her CMS.998/CMS.600 New Media Literacies course.
Relevant link:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Comparative-Media-Studies/CMS-998Spring-2007/RelatedResources
SDE Student Hired at Lockheed Martin
Derek Pusinsky, Spring 2007 graduate of the program, started in an advanced position at Lockheed Martin Corp. in July. Derek is working in their Engineering Prototype Lab (EPL) where he is building advanced prototypes mostly of rocket launching systems. He is using his computer programming and simulation skills to program milling machines, lathes, and their newest toy, a WaterJet machine to make precision parts for the prototypes. According to him, this job is a perfect blend of everything that he learned at CCBC/UB and what he was doing at the auto shop where he worked during that time.
SDE Faculty's Paper Accepted by DiGRA
SDE professor Kathleen Harmeyer collaborated with Jayfus Doswell Ph.D.of Juxtopia, LLC on a paper entitled "Extending the ‘Serious Game’ Boundary: Virtual Instructors in Mobile Mixed Reality Learning Games". It was accepted by the Digital Games Research Association for their Fall 2007 Conference in Japan.
Maryland Film Festival Picks Up an SDE Student's Film
Daniel Pittore's independent film "Blood, Boobs and Beast," is a documentary about B-Horror filmmaker Don Dohler. This year the Maryland Film Festival will be held on May 4th - 6th. BBB will be showing Friday at 7:00 and Sunday @ 5:00.
Relevant links: http://www.bbbmovie.com and The Maryland Film Festival
SDE Student Hired at Big Huge Games
Stephanie Kinnear, January 2007 graduate of the program, has started work at Big Huge Games in Timonium as an Assistant Producer. Stephanie’s capstone project was a game to teach Spanish in an immersive crime scene investigation multiplayer online game. She produced this with Tony Montalvo.
SDE Students Return to Teach at UB
Brit Steiner and Damian Hart, January 2007 graduates of the program are back at UB. Due to growth in the program and Prof. Moulthrop’s sabbatical leave, SDE was inneed of quality folks who knew the work and were dynamic great communicators. That surely defines Brit and Damian. Brit is teaching Usability in Computer Game Design while Damian is teaching Applied Simulation and Interactive Multimedia.
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