Wisconsin Interactive
Bradley Grzesiak
Timothy Nott
Jeremy Shafton
Jon Aleckson, CEO
Jon is the Founder and CEO of Web Courseworks. He earned a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1978 Jon established Madison Productions, Inc. Web Courseworks was founded in 2000 and delivers large-scale eLearning through the use of database driven authoring, game based learning and innovative project management.
Justin Beck, CEO
Justin Beck is Co-Founder and CEO of Perblue, Inc., a mobile social gaming company in Madison, WI. He has worked at Microsoft and Google as a software engineer and program manager. Justin has taken Perblue from 5 friends just making a game for fun to 30 full-time employees. He's grown Perblue's flagship product, Parallel Kingdom, to over 500,000 accounts and growing. Justin enjoys entrepreneurship, understanding markets, and innovative technology and looks to create the most successful location-based role playing game in the world.
John Bergman, CEO
John Bergman - CEO, Guild Software Inc. An experienced online-game executive, developer and designer, John founded Guild Software in 1998 for the sole purpose of pursuing the next generation in persistent, evolving online worlds. After shepherding the company through the process of developing a complete MMO engine from scratch, Guild Software successfully launched "Vendetta Online" across major retail in 2004. More recently, the title gained added fame as the first traditional PC MMO to transition to mobile, launching with extensive TV coverage as partners Verizon and Motorola released the new Xoom Android tablet in 2011. When he isn't exploring new business models, markets and the boundaries of MMO design, John also enjoys mentoring new game developers and would-be startups, and sits on the game-related advisory boards of UW Whitewater, ITT Tech, and other local universities.
Robert Dollinger, Department Chair
Robert is the Department Chair of the award winning Computing and New Media Technologies program at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. In 2003 Dr. Dollinger joined the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point where he continued his teaching and research activities. Since then he developed 9 new courses for the CIS program, and renewed many of the existing ones. He also extended his research interest to areas including OO systems, automated code generation and emerging Web development technologies. Dr. Dollinger has published 65 papers and 5 books. Dr. Robert Dollinger obtained his Master degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Romania in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from the same institution in 1996. He started his professional activity as a researcher at the Medical Informatics Institute in Cluj-Napoca, where he worked on and managed several projects on medical imagery and computed tomography. In 1990 he joined the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca as a full-time lecturer, teaching courses in databases, programming and algorithms and data structures. In parallel with his teaching he was actively researching in areas related to qualitative reasoning, constraint networks and order of magnitude models, that where the main topic of his Ph.D. thesis. From 1994 to 2003, Dr. Dollinger has visited several European Universities in countries like: France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Ireland. He participated in several EU or nationally founded projects, and extended his research areas to database query languages and transaction processing models. He is an active conference referee, book reviewer, and pro bono consultant.
Diane Christie, Program Director
Diane Christie teaches computer science and serves as the Program Director of the Game Design and Development (GDD) Program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She has published lab manuals and student solutions manuals to accompany several introductory computer science books. She is active in the scholarship of teaching and learning movement and has published teaching education articles in the Teaching Professor and on the web. Diane received 4 patents during her nine years of industry experience at Cray Research, Inc. prior to starting her career in academia. Her practical experience helped her pioneer the new GDD program and concentrations in Information Assurance and Cyber Security and Bioinformatics for Applied Mathematics and Computer Science Program. Diane received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.
Mike Crowns, CEO
Mike served as the Director of Product Development at Raven Software for 13 ½ years. In this capacity, Mike was involved with every title that Raven produced over that stretch of time. Mike was instrumental in orchestrating the growth of Raven Software from a staff of 12 to over 180. His main responsibilities included contract negotiations, talent acquisition and retention, daily operations, project oversight and vendor relations in addition to creating and executing a budget and staffing plan for the studio as well as for all the individual projects. Currently, he is a member of the board of directors for Film Wisconsin. Mike also serves on several advisory boards for educational institutions in the region that offer programs related to the interactive media industry.
Chris Kelly, President
Chris Kelly has been with MyWeather since its founding in 2000, and is responsible for MyWeather’s worldwide operations and strategic direction. His interests lie in developing new precision weather-powered content, applications, and business models to serve the location-based weather services industry. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Kelly also holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management. He is a Company owner and member of the Board of Directors.
Chris Hutchings, President
Christopher K Hutchings has been the President and Director of the Media Institute since January 1986. Christopher is responsible for the college’s locations in Madison, WI and Minneapolis, MN. Prior to joining the Media Institute he had worked in financial services in Los Angeles, CA. Christopher is a graduate of UW-Parkside where earned his BA in music (Classical Guitar).
Paul MacArthur, President
Paul MacArthur is the President and Technical Director of Human Head Studios. Paul has been in the game development industry since 1994. In 1997 he and his partners started Human Head Studios and he manages all the technical aspects of the company.
Mark McPhail, Dean
Dr. Mark Lawrence McPhail is Dean of the College of Arts and Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has held administrative and instructional appointments at Southern Methodist University, Miami University of Ohio, the University of Utah, Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, and Emerson College, and served as the Van Zelst Lecturer in Communication at Northwestern University. Dr. McPhail began his career in Communication at Emerson College, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, earning a degree and teaching certificate in Secondary Education, and serving as the Senior Speaker for his graduating class. After graduating from Emerson College, he went on to receive a Master of Arts in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric and Public Address from the University of Massachusetts.
Since 1983, Dr. McPhail has presented numerous papers at National and Regional Conferences, and published scholarly essays in state, regional, national, and international books and journals. He is the author of Zen in the Art of Rhetoric: An Inquiry into Coherence, published by the State University of New York Press, and The Rhetoric of Racism Revisited: Reparations or Separation? published by Rowman and Littlefield. His scholarship has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, the Howard Journal of Communications, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Qualitative Inquiry, and Rhetoric Review. His creative work has appeared in Dark Horse Magazine and The American Literary Review, and he has exhibited his photography at the Cerulean Gallery and the African American Museum in Dallas, Texas, and the Crossman Gallery in Whitewater Wisconsin. His research interests include rhetorical theory and epistemology, language and race relations, and visual rhetoric and photography. He is included in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, and Who's Who Among America’s Teachers, and has received a number of awards including the Albert J. Colton Memorial Research Fellowship, the University of Utah's Tanner Humanities Fellowship, the National Communication Association's Karl Wallace Memorial Award, and Southern Methodist University’s Honoring our Professor’s Excellence (HOPE) Award. In 2006, he served as an expert witness for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.
Kurt Squire, Senior Investigator and Professor
Kurt Squire is a Senior Investigator and Creative Director of the Educational Research Challenge Area at the Morgridge Institute for Research, while on leave from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is an Associate Professor in Curriculum & Instruction. Squire's research focuses on the impact of contemporary gaming practices on learning, schooling, and society. His early work focused on using Civilization to teach world history. Since then, he has transitioned to studying mobile, place-based games and games for improving scientific citizenship. Squire's current work uses games to transform public participation in science. He is the author of Video Games & Learning (2011), published by Teachers College Press, Co-Editor of Games + Learning + Society, published by Cambridge Press, and over 75 articles and chapters on technology in education. Also a designer or co-designer on several educational games, Squire's work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Department of Education. Squire is married to Constance Steinkuehler and lives in Madison, WI where they are raising two rambunctious boys.
Dan White, CEO
Dan White is CEO at Filament Games, an educational game design and development studio in Madison, WI. Founded in 2005, Filament’s 40 plus title portfolio includes a diversity of STEM, literacy, and civics education games developed for clients such as National Geographic’s JASON Science and Sandra Day O’Connor’s iCivics. Dan’s principal responsibilities include: process/team management, business development, strategic and financial planning, outreach, and client relations. Additionally, Dan serves as PI and co-PI on a variety of academic and business innovation grant projects. Dan holds a BS in communication technologies from Cornell University and an MS in educational communications and technology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Prior to founding Filament, Dan designed instructional technologies at the UW Division of Information Technology and the Academic ADL Co-Lab. Prior to that he served as production/art lead on the Cornell Theory Center’s NSF-funded SciCentr project, a series of online virtual worlds created for informal science and technology outreach. Dan serves on the advisory board for Games for Change and is a founding member of the GLS (Games Learning Society) organization at UW - Madison. Dan's prime professional directive is to deliver game experiences that broaden perspectives, educate, and spark inspiration.
