Katherine Isbister is a

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

and

human computer interaction Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...

researcher and designer, currently a professor in computational media at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

. Until June 2015, she was an associate professor at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, with a joint appointment in computer science and in the Game Center at the Tisch School of the Arts.About
Katherineinterface.com At NYU, she was founding research director of the Game Innovation Lab. Isbister's research and design contributions center on how to create more compelling emotional and social qualities in games and other digital experiences. She has innovated in the areas of character/avatar/agent design and in researching and evaluating the user experience. Her book, ''Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach'', was nominated in 2006 for a ''

Game Developer Magazine ''Game Developer'' was a magazine for video game creators, originally started in March 1994 by Miller Freeman, Inc as quarterly, later bimonthly, and finally monthly. In each issue, industry leaders and experts shared technical solutions, reviewed ...

'' Frontline award. She is also co-editor of a book which outlines the state of the art in user research practices in studying games, titled ''Game Usability: Advice from the Experts for Advancing the Player Experience''. Isbister received her Ph.D. from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, with a focus on the design of interactive characters. In 1999, she was selected as one of '' MIT Technology Review's'' Innovators under 35. In 2011, she received a Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. From 2014 to 2015, she held a Lenore Annenberg and Wallis Annenberg Fellow in Communication at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

References

External links

Katherine Isbister's siteNYU Game Innovation Lab
{{DEFAULTSORT:Isbister, Katherine Stanford University alumni University of Chicago alumni Living people Polytechnic Institute of New York University faculty Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows Year of birth missing (living people)