Research
The Division of Games' faculty and students pursue research in a number of areas, including games for health, games for learning and training, modeling and simulation, and Game AI. Our established collaborations with other departments at the University provides a unique opportunity for research experiences both in “core” game development/design and in integrative work connecting games scholarship with a range of fields such as dance, informal science education, rehabilitation medicine, forensic science, and national security intelligence analysis.
Both our lecturing and tenure-line faculty are recognized leaders in games scholarship, with significant and sustained sponsored projects, impactful research publications, graduates placed at top-ranked academic and industry institutions and leadership service in international scholarly and professional organizations.
The Laboratory for Quantitative Experience Design
The Laboratory for Quantitative Experience Design (QED Lab) is an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Utah. We build human-centered artificial intelligence systems in search of invariant properties of experience design: precise relationships that exist between an inner environment (a person’s cognitive states), interface (narrative & game discourse) and outer environment (virtual worlds).
The Spatial Perception and Cognitive Engineering Lab
The Spatial Perception and Cognitive Engineering (SPACE) Lab is a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research group led by Dr. Lauren Buck at the University of Utah that investigates how people perceive and interact with immersive virtual environments. We draw on interdisciplinary principles to evaluate cutting-edge extended reality (XR) systems and generate foundational knowledge that informs the design of future immersive technologies. Particularly, our work focuses on how system design elements (ranging from hardware and software to interaction mechanics and user interfaces) shape user experience in XR.
Liquid Narrative Research Group
Michael Young is the Chair of the Games Division and an adjunct professor in the Kahlert School of Computing and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Utah, as well as an adjunct professor of Computer Science at NC State University. He directs the Liquid Narrative research group with students and staff at the U. His research focuses on the development of computational models of AI in interactive narrative with applications to computer games, educational and training systems and virtual environments. He has published more than 125 papers in leading conferences and journals in computer games, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, cognitive science. autonomous agents and intelligent user interfaces.