My scholarship revolves around game development rather than film, which makes me somewhat unique within the School of Film and Animation (SOFA). Prior to joining SOFA, I served as a Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in the School of Interactive Games and Media (IGM) at RIT for eight years. My background is in game development, I have been developing games professionally for over sixteen years.
My experience in game development brings significant value to SOFA, given the number of students interested in working in the game industry and the many SOFA alumni now working in that field. Game tools and techniques are now used heavily in filmmaking. This is evidenced by the entirely new discipline of virtual production used to create such successes as The Mandalorian, created using the Unreal Engine, the same game engine used to create Fortnite and a plethora of other games.
My teaching and scholarship are deeply interconnected, each enriching the other.
Scholarship supporting teaching:
I create as a scholar and professional game developer to maintain and expand my technical skills so I can demonstrate the latest industry techniques in the classroom. Creating provides me an outlet to sustain my passion and excitement, which I pass along to my students. I create to keep one foot in the industry, and leverage my industry connections to assist my students in finding game development employment. Students appreciate and value my firsthand experience because I've already done the work they aspire to do, and I bring real-world context to every lesson, not just theory.
My scholarship is highly collaborative, reflecting the nature of the industry. Much of it is conducted through MAGIC Spell Studios, where I work with students to develop games in a hybrid professional/educational environment. By working in the trenches alongside students I am able to teach by example. This teaching happens organically, and fills in gaps in students’ understanding that remain after formal coursework.
Teaching supporting scholarship:
With twelve years of teaching experience at RIT (as of this writing), I’ve had extensive opportunity to experiment with pedagogy and refine my instructional methods. To share what I have learned from teaching, I write about the pedagogy of game art and design and disseminate that scholarship through conference papers. In addition, I am currently authoring a textbook on 3D game art production—a comprehensive introduction to the asset creation process that will be published by Bloomsbury Academic Press.
In both my teaching and my scholarship, I am committed to building a bridge between academia and industry, preparing students for meaningful and successful careers in game development and adjacent creative fields.