Gillian Smith

gillian@ccs.neu.edu

About

profile-orangehairI am an assistant professor in the PLAIT research lab at Northeastern University, jointly appointed between the College of Computer and Information Science and the College of Arts, Media, and Design. I recently received my PhD in Computer Science from UC Santa Cruz, where I studied with Jim Whitehead and Michael Mateas in the Center for Games and Playable Media. My dissertation is titled Expressive Design Tools: Procedural Content Generation for Game Designers.

My research focuses on building procedural content generators that can be controlled by human designers, and thus enable new design experiences. A summary of my research projects is on my projects page. I am also interested in games for education, and issues surrounding women in technology and games. My full CV is available here.

I am a co-founder and Technical Director of Play Crafts, a company devoted to building tools to help the crafting community design, create, and share their ideas. In my copious free time I am an avid crafter–I love quilting and embroidery, and am getting started with watercolor painting and zentangling.