dr. René Glas

René Glas is an assistant professor of New Media and Digital Culture, specializing in digital games and game culture. His work focuses on games and media literacy, games and paratextuality, gaming history, participatory culture, and play as method.  

dr. Ewa Miedzobrodzka

Ewa Miedzobrodzka, PhD, is a media psychologist and a postdoctoral researcher on the project: 'Digital media use and equal opportunities' within the Youth and Digitalisation (JEDi) consortium. Her research interests focus on the effects of digital media (e.g., video games and social media) use on adolescents’ social, cognitive, emotional, and educational outcomes. In her research, she applies self-report, behavioural, and neuroimaging (ERP) approaches. She is a member of the Open Science Community Utrecht.

Aengus Schutte

Mick Raamsteeboers

Aria Mohsenimotlagh

Inge van Noort

Isabel Rump

dr. Bouke van Gorp

Assistant professor Human Geography and Planning, Faculty of Geosciences.

dr. Stefan Werning

Stefan Werning is an Associate Professor for Digital Media and Game Studies at Utrecht University, where he co-coordinates the focus area Game Research and organizes the annual summer school Multidisciplinary Game Research.

dr. Laura op de Beke

Assistant professor of interactive media, screens, and interfaces; background in literary studies and game studies.

dr. Julian Frommel

Julian Frommel is an assistant professor in the Interaction/Multimedia group. He is interested in the design and implementation of interactive digital systems that provide enjoyable, meaningful, safe, and healthy experiences for users. In one research line, he addresses hate in online games. His research also investigates how interactive systems can help mitigate their negative outcomes in adaptivity and intervention approaches.

drs. Timo Fluitsma

As a faculty member at Utrecht University, my academic journey began with a focus on theatre education, and later evolved into a specialisation in new media and green media, with a particular emphasis on game research. Currently, I'm teaching theatre, new media and storytelling courses.

Prof. dr. Remco Veltkamp

Remco Veltkamp is professor of Game and Media Technology in the Faculty of Science. His research interests include Game technology, game design, games for good; 3D object and scenen analysis, recognition, retrieval; Video and image analysis, understanding; Music information retrieval; and AR/VR interaction.

Michel Wijkstra

Michel is a PhD Candidate with the Interaction and Multimedia group. The subject of his work is toxic behaviors and harassment in multiplayer games. This broad topic includes detection and prevention techniques and analysis of the causes and effects of this type of behavior. In his work he has assessed the current state of the design space for intervention systems and is currenly working on various ways of adressing toxicity. He also teaches game programming and serious games courses and supervises both bachelor and master theses.

Maxime Scholte Albers

dr. Michiel Kamp

Michiel Kamp is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Department of Media and Culture Studies. His research takes hermeneutic and semiotic approaches to music in video games and related audiovisual media such as films and virtual reality, and attempts to categorize and characterize the different ways in which soundtracks operate.

dr. Sander Bakkes

Sander Bakkes is an Assistant Professor in Game Design and Playful Learning. His research & teaching connects design-, psychology-, and technological disciplines. Currently he focuses his research on the positive effects of play on (mental) health.

Amy Lycklama

dr. Johannes Pfau

Johannes is an Assistant Professor within the Interaction/Multimedia group. His work revolves around the intersection of video games, (generative) AI, analytics and data science. Most of his innovations are implemented and evaluated directly within established games and/or developed in direct collaboration with representatives of the industry.

dr. Susanne Poeller

Susanne is an assistant professor in Human-Centred Computing, seeking to create welcoming and inclusive gaming communities. She applies psychological theories of motivation and self-regulation to better understand the problem of online toxicity (especially verbal abuse and discrimination). Specifically, she is focused on how we can promote empathy and positive social interactions to counteract the prevalent negativity.

Federica S. Giusti

Federica is a PhD candidate at the Human-Centered Computing interaction, researching gender representation in digital games to reduce disparity and create a more inclusive player experience. Her work blends design, psychology, and technology to promote respectful, balanced gaming environments.

Prof. dr. Joost Raessens

Prof. dr. Joost Raessens holds the chair of Media Theory at Utrecht University. His research focuses on the understanding of how green media contribute to ecological thought.

dr. Jasper van Vught

Assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University, also specializing in game studies. His focus is on game theory and methodology, video game ethics, and the history and preservation of games as art forms.

dr. Teresa de la Hera

dr. Deborah Cole

Debbie Cole received her Ph.D at the University of Arizona. Her work in semiotics combines research in linguistic, anthropological, and literary approaches to the study of language. Areas of interest include ideological and interdisciplinary constraints on socialized human categorizing, learning, and communicating. She also translates poetry from Bahasa Indonesia into English.

dr. Luce Claessens

Luce Claessens is an anthropolgist and an educational psychologist. Before pursuing a career in educational sciences, she worked as a teacher at an urban primary school in Utrecht. Her interest in teachers’ behaviour and cognitions was sparked here and she is currently coordinator of the teacher training program for primary school teachers at the department of Education. Her research focuses on teacher-student relationships from the perspective of the teacher. Her interests include social cognition, motivation, interpersonal relationships, (student) teacher expertise development and research based teacher education programs.

dr. Alice Veldkamp

Ramon Vos

dr. Joost Vervoort

Joost Vervoort is Associate Professor of Transformative Imagination in the Environmental Governance Group at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. His research focuses on how different imaginations of the future connect to action in the present.

Maarten Gerritse

dr. Floris Schuiling 

Floris Schuiling is a musicologist specialising in the study of musical performance. His work focuses on how musicians interact with technology in their creative process, and how such small-scale interactions are shaped by larger cultural and historical developments.

Kyle Thompson

Laura McManamon MSc

Carien Moossdorff

Prof. dr. Leoniek Wijngaards

Leoniek Wijngaards-de Meij is Professor Data use for innovation in Higher Education, and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Utrecht University.

Prof. dr. Gönül Dilaver

dr. Sigrid Merx

Dr Sigrid Merx is an Associate Professor Theatre Studies at the Department of Media and Culture Studies. Her current research focuses on the dramaturgy of contemporary socially engaged theatre and performance practices, in particular performative interventions in public space. She investigates how situated art and performance can act as productive sites to negotiate contemporary frictions, concerns and debates in and about urban, public spaces.

Dennis Jansen MA

Dennis Jansen (he/him) was awarded a ‘PhDs in the Humanities’ grant by NWO for the project ‘The Becoming-Playful of Warfare in the Netherlands’ (2021–2025). His research focuses on playful media/military technologies, such as drones, serious games and simulators, and the mobilization of play in the Dutch military-innovation complex.

dr. Michiel de Lange

dr. Imar de Vries

Prof. dr. Sybille Lammes

dr. Ingrid Hoofd

dr. Stephanie de Smale

dr. Alex Gekker

dr. Zerrin Yumak

dr. Roland Geraerts

Roland Geraerts is assistant professor at the Virtual Worlds group in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University. There, he obtained his PhD on sampling-based motion planning techniques. His current research focuses on path planning and crowd simulation in games and virtual environments. He is one of the co-founders of the annual Motion in Games conference.