Downloadable CV (PDF).

Ben Samuel
Curriculum Vitae
Department of Computer Science
University of New Orleans
New Orleans, LA 70148 USA

http://www.ben-samuel.com
bsamuel@cs.uno.edu

EDUCATION

2016 Ph.D. Computer Science. University of California, Santa Cruz.
Dissertation: Crafting Stories Through Play
Adviser: Noah Wardrip-Fruin
2012 M.S. Computer Science. University of California, Santa Cruz.
Thesis: Comme il Faut: A System for Authoring Playable Social Models
Adviser: Noah Wardrip-Fruin
2008 Graduate Certificate Degree in Theatre Arts. University of California, Santa Cruz.
2007 B.A. Computer Science. University of California, Santa Cruz.
2007 B.A. Theatre Arts. University of California, Santa Cruz.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

2023-Present Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of New Orleans.
2017-2023 Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of New Orleans.
2017 Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Santa Cruz.
2009-2016 Research Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2023 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Fundamentals of Game Development (Fall 2023)
Students are tasked with developing a critical discourse around games through analyzing existing games and developing and iterating their own 2D and 3D prototypes. Hybrid delivery to approximately 20 students.
2023 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Topics in Mobile Application Development (Fall 2023)
Refined previous redesign, still focusing on React Native. Students engage in group based design research as well as individual projects. Hybrid delivery to approximately 50 students.
2023 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2023)
Survey course covering various AI techniques, problems, and algorithms. Topics include search, logic, planning, and machine learning. Approx. 30 students.
2023 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Advanced Game Development (Spring 2023)
Oversaw programmers and artists produce three complete games. Learning objectives include agile/scrum techniques and interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. Approx. 12 students.
2022 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Fundamentals of Game Development (Fall 2022)
Students are tasked with developing a critical discourse around games through analyzing existing games and developing and iterating their own 2D and 3D prototypes. Hybrid delivery to approximately 20 students.
2022 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Topics in Mobile Application Development (Fall 2022)
Refined previous redesign, still focusing on React Native. Students engage in group based design research as well as individual projects. Hybrid delivery to approximately 50 students.
2022 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2022)
Survey course covering various AI techniques, problems, and algorithms. Topics include search, logic, planning, and machine learning. Approx. 30 students.
2022 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Advanced Game Development (Spring 2022)
Oversaw programmers and artists produce three complete games. Learning objectives include agile/scrum techniques and interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. Approx. 20 students.
2021 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Fundamentals of Game Development (Fall 2021)
Students are tasked with developing a critical discourse around games through analyzing existing games and developing and iterating their own 2D and 3D prototypes. Adapted to hybrid delivery to approximately 20 students.
2021 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Topics in Mobile Application Development (Fall 2021)
Completely redesigned the course from previous offerings; shifting focus away from Android development towards React Native. Students still engage in group-based design research as well as individual projects Approx. 50 students.
2021 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Advanced Game Development (Spring 2021)
Oversaw programmers and artists produce five complete games. Learning objectives include agile/scrum techniques and interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. Approx. 20 students.
2021 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2021)
Survey course covering various AI techniques, problems, and algorithms. Topics include search, logic, planning, and machine learning. Approx. 30 students.
2020 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Software Design I (Fall 2020)
An introductory programming and software engineering class. Topics include control structures, object oriented programming, and inheritance. Adapted for online delivery for approximately 15 students.
2020 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Fundamentals of Game Development (Fall 2020)
Students are tasked with developing a critical discourse around games through analyzing existing games and developing and iterating their own 2D and 3D prototypes. Adapted for online delivery to approximately 35 students.
2020 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2020)
Survey course covering various AI techniques, problems, and algorithms. Topics include search, logic, planning, and machine learning. Adapted 20 slide decks with thousands of slides, and adapted the course for online deployment. 12 students.
2020 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Advanced Game Development (Spring 2020)
Oversaw programmers and artists produce three complete games. Learning objectives include agile/scrum techniques and interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. Reimagined the course for online deployment. 15 students.
2019 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Fundamentals of Game Development (Fall 2019)
Students are tasked with developing a critical discourse around games through analyzing existing games and developing and iterating their own 2D and 3D prototypes. Delivered 20+ lectures to approx. 25 students.
2019 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Topics in Mobile Application Development (Fall 2019)
A course on developing Android applications. Course focused on app development, design research, and project work. Delivered 20+ lectures to approx. 30 students. Iterated on previously developed syllabus, assignments, and lectures.
2019 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Advanced Game Development (Spring 2019)
Programmers, artists, and musicians form semester-long teams to produce games. Learning objectives include agile/scrum techniques and interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. Reimagined the course from previous offerings.
2019 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Software Design I (Spring 2019)
An introductory programming and software engineering class. Topics include control structures, object oriented programming, and inheritance. Delivered 30+ lectures to 30 students. Iterated on hundreds of slides. Graded assignments and exams.
2018 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Topics in Mobile Application Development (Fall 2018)
A course on developing Android applications. Course focused on app development, design research, and project work. Delivered 20+ lectures to approx. 25 students. Created syllabus, assignments, and project descriptions from scratch.
2018 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Software Design I (Fall 2018)
An introductory programming and software engineering class. Topics include control
structures, object oriented programming, and inheritance. Delivered 30+ lectures
to 30 students. Iterated on hundreds of slides. Graded assignments and exams.
2018 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Software Design I (Spring 2018)
An introductory programming and software engineering class. Topics include control
structures, object oriented programming, and inheritance. Delivered 30+ lectures
to 35 students. Iterated on hundreds of slides. Graded assignments and exams.
2017 Instructor of Record, University of New Orleans.
Software Design I (Spring 2018)
An introductory programming and software engineering class. Topics include control
structures, object oriented programming, and inheritance. Delivered 20+ lectures
to 30 students. Created hundreds of slides. Graded assignments and exams.
2016 Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Design Research (Spring 2016)
Class structured around identifying a real-world problem and designing and iterating on a prototype solution via observation, interviews, mood boards, and user tests. Graded assignments, provided feedback, and ran several lectures.
2016 Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Introduction to Computer Science (Winter 2016)
Taught underclassmen from engineering and non-engineering majors the foundations and joy of programming and procedural literacy. Ran three lab sections a week. Held weekly lecture on supplemental course material.
2015 Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Research and Teaching in Computer Science and Engineering (Fall 2015)
Taught incoming graduate students from diverse backgrounds the principles of academic life. Gave talks on how to apply for grants and how to be a capable Teaching Assistant. Reviewed and responded to over 100 fellowship applications.
2014-2015 Improv Workshop Instructor, University of California, Berkeley.
Improv Du Jour Festival (Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015)
Directed a workshop of college-level improvisers in a performance based on an experimental form of improvisational theatre. Performances of this form have consistently been a festival highlight.
2010-2011 Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Interactive Storytelling (Winter 2010, Winter 2011)
Worked closely with students to help them master the material. Created 4 guest-lectures based on student need and input. Provided copious and clear feedback on assignments. Held weekly well attended office hours.
2007-2008 Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Introduction to Acting (Fall 2007, Winter 2008)
Led 100+ student theatre exercises, designed and ran weekly 40+ student sections.
Women in Theatre (Spring 2009)
Reviewed and consulted on student projects and final assignments.
2006-2007 Modified Supplemental Instruction Tutor, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Linear Algebra/Differential Equations (Fall 2006)
Introduction to Computer Science (Winter 2007)
Ran biweekly sections targeted at struggling, but passionate, students. Designed curriculum to help students help each other learn the material.

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS AND BOOK CHAPTERS

  1. Jeff Leichman, Ben Samuel. “Part 1 – Introduction: Social Physics and the VESPACE Project” in Computer Modeling and Simulation for Literary-Historical Research: VESPACE and Social Physics, a special issue of Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 2023. [Journal Article, coauthor and coeditor]
  2. Ben Samuel, Dylan Lederle-Ensign, Mike Treanor, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Josh McCoy, Aaron Reed and Michael Mateas. “Playing the Worlds of Prom Week.” In Narrative Theory, Literature, and New Media: Narrative Minds and Virtual Worlds, edited by Mari Hatavara, Matti Hyvärinen, Maria Mäkelä, Frans Mäyrä, New York: Routledge. 2016. [Book Chapter].
  3. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Aaron Reed, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Social Story Worlds with Comme il Faut.” IEEE Transactions On Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, vol. 6, no. 2, 2014. [Journal Article]

PEER REVIEWED CONFERENCE PUBLICATIONS

  1. Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville, James Ryan and Liz England. “A quantified analysis of bad news for story sifting interfaces.” 14th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS 2021). Talinn University, Talinn, Estonia December 7-10, 2021.
  2. Daniel DeKerlegand, Ben Samuel, and Mike Treanor. “Pedagogical challenges in social physics authoring.” 14th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS 2021). Talinn University, Talinn, Estonia December 7-10, 2021.
  3. Max Kreminski, Ben Samuel, Edward Melcer, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Evaluating AI-based games through retellings.” 15th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2019). Atlanta, Georgia, October 8-12, 2019.
  4. Jacob Garbe, Max Kreminski, Ben Samuel, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, and Michael Mateas. “StoryAssembler: An engine for generating dynamic choice-driven narratives.” 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2019). San Louis Obispo, California, August 26-30, 2019. [Nominated for Best Paper]
  5. Ben Samuel, Aaron Reed, Emily Short, Samantha Heck, Barrie Robison, Landon Wright, Terence Soule, Mike Treanor, Joshua McCoy, Anne Sullivan, Alireza Shirvani, Edward Garcia, Rachelyn Farrell, Stephen Ware, Katherine Compton. “Playable Experiences at AIIDE 2018.” 14th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2018). Alberta, Canada, November 13-17, 2018.
  6. Adam Summerville, Chris Martens, Ben Samuel, Joseph Osborn, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas. “Gemini: Bidirectional Generation and Analysis of Games via ASP.” 14th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2018). Alberta, Canada, November 13-17, 2018.
  7. Ben Samuel, James Ryan, Adam Summerville, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Bad News: An Experiment in Computationally Assisted Performance.” 9th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (2016).
  8. Ben Samuel, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “The Design of Writing Buddy: A Mixed-Initiative Approach Towards Computational Story Collaboration” 9th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (2016).
  9. Alexander Zook, Michael Cook, Eric Butler, Kristin Siu, Matthew Guzdial, Mark Riedl, James Ryan, Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville, Michael Mateas, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Playable Experiences at AIIDE 2016.” 12th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (2016).
  10. James O. Ryan, Adam Summerville, and Ben Samuel. “Bad News: A Game of Death and Communication.” 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016), San Jose, California, May 7-12, 2016.
  11. Joseph C. Osborn, Ben Samuel, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Playspecs: Regular Expressions for Game Play Traces.” In Proceedings of the Eleventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2015), Santa Cruz, California, November 14-18, 2015.
  12. Ben Samuel, Aaron A. Reed, Paul Maddaloni, Michael Mateas, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “The Ensemble Engine: Next-Generation Social Physics.” In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2015), Monterey, California, June 22-25, 2015.
  13. Joseph C. Osborn, Ben Samuel, Josh McCoy and Michael Mateas. “Evaluating Play Trace (Dis)similarity Metrics.” In Proceedings of the Tenth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2014), Raleigh, North Carolina, October 3-7, 2014.
  14. Ben Samuel, Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Aaron Reed, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
    “Introducing Story Sampling: Preliminary Results of a New Interactive Narrative Evaluation Technique.” In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2014), Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, April 3-7, 2014.
  15. Daniel Shapiro, Josh McCoy, April Grow, Ben Samuel, Andrew Stern, Reid Swanson, Mike Treanor, and Michael Mateas. “Creating Playable Social Experiences through Whole-Body Interaction with Virtual Characters.” in Proceedings of the Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2013), Boston, Massachusetts, October 14-18, 2013.
  16. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Aaron Reed, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Prom Week: Designing past the game/story dilemma.” In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2013), Chania, Crete, Greece, May 14-17, 2013, pp. 94-101.
  17. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Aaron Reed, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Comme il Faut: A System for Authoring Playable Social Models.” In Proceedings of the Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2011), Palo Alto, California, October 12-14, 2011.
  18. Aaron Reed, Ben Samuel, Anne Sullivan, Ricky Grant, April Grow, Justin Lazaro, Jennifer Mahal, Sri Kurniawan, Marilyn Walker and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “A Step Towards the Future of Role-Playing Games: The SpyFeet Mobile RPG Project.” In Proceedings of the Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2011), Palo Alto, California, October 12-14, 2011.
  19. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Aaron Reed, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Prom Week: Social Physics as Gameplay.” In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2011), Bordeaux, France, June 29-July 1, 2011, pp. 319-321.
  20. Aaron A. Reed, Ben Samuel, Anne Sullivan, Ricky Grant, April Grow, Justin Lazaro, Jennifer Mahal, Sri Kurniawan, Marilyn Walker and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “SpyFeet: An Exercise RPG.” In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2011), Bordeaux, France, June 29 -July 1, 2011.
  21. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Aaron Reed, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Authoring Game-based Interactive Narrative using Social Games and Comme il Faut.”In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference & Festival of the Electronic Literature Organization: Archive & Innovate (ELO 2010), Providence, Rhode Island, USA, June 3-6, 2010.

WORKSHOP AND SYMPOSIUM PUBLICATIONS

  1. Ben Samuel and Adam Summerville. “Moirai: Enabling Complex Narrative Structure in Simulation-Driven Stories” The Experimental AI in Games Workshop (EXAG), co-located with the nineteenth 2023 AAAI conference on Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2023)), Salt Lake City, Utah, USA October 8, 2023.
  2. Adam Summerville, Ben Samuel, James Ryan, and Liz England. “Casual Creator Cursed Problems or: How I Learned to Start Worrying And Love Designers” The Workshop on Programming Languages in Interactive Entertainment (PLIE), co-located with the seventeenth 2021 AAAI conference on Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2021), held online due to Covid-19, October 11, 2021.
  3. Ben Samuel, Josh McCoy, and Mike Treanor. “A Vision for the design of AI in AI-based games” The Workshop of Experimental AI in Games (EXAG), co-located with the 2021 AAAI conference on Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2021), held online due to Covid-19, October 12, 2021.
  4. Daniel DeKerlegand, Ben Samuel, and Jeffrey Leichman. “Encoding Socio-Historical Exegesis as Social Physics Predicates” The Workshop on User Experience of Artificial Intelligence in Games, co-located with the 2020 ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, held online due to Covid-19, September 11, 2020.
  5. Adam Summerville and Ben Samuel. “Kismet: A Small Social Simulation Language” 1st Workshop on Casual Creators, co-located with the 2020 International Conference on Computational Creativity, held online due to Covid-19, September 7, 2020.
  6. Joseph C. Osborn, Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Towards General RPG Playing.” 4th Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (EXAG4), co-located with the 2017 Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, Snowbird Ski Resort, Utah, USA October 5-6 2017.
  7. Ben Samuel, Jacob Garbe, Adam Summerville, Jill Denner, Sarah Harmon, Gina Lepore, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Leveraging Procedural Narrative and Gameplay to Address Controversial Topics.” Workshop on Computational Creativity and Social Justice, co-located with the 2017 International Conference on Computational Creativity, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
    June 20, 2017.
  8. Ben Samuel, James Ryan, Adam Summerville, Michael Mateas, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Computatrum Personae: Toward a Role-Based Taxonomy of (Computationally Assisted) Performance.” 3rd Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (EXAG 2016), co-located with the 2016 Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, San Francisco, California, 2016.
  9. James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville and Jonathan Lessard. “Bad News: A Computationally Assisted Live-Action Prototype to Guide Content Creation.” Second Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (EXAG 2015), co-located with the 2015 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Santa Cruz, California, November 14, 2015.
  10. Christopher Antoun, Matthew Antoun, James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel, Reid Swanson and Marilyn A Walker. “Generating Natural Language Retellings from Prom Week Play Traces.” In Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Procedural Content Generation in Games (PCGames 2015), co-located with the 2015 Foundations of Digital Games Conference, Monterey, California, June 23, 2015.
  11. Ben Samuel. “What Comes Next? An Experiment in Interactive Narrative.” Doctoral Consortium at the Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertaiment (AIIDE 2013), Boston, Massachusetts, October 14-18, 2013.
  12. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Brandon Tearse, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Comme il Faut 2: A Fully Realized Model for Socially-Oriented Gameplay.” In Proceedings of the Intelligent Narrative Technologies III Workshop (INT3 2010), co-located with the 2010 Foundations of Digital Games Conference, Monterey, California, June 18, 2010.

DEMONSTRATIONS, GUEST LECTURES, AND PANEL APPEARANCES

  1. Ben Samuel, Dan Clifton, Madeline Kawanaka. Panel moderator for Greater New Orleans Inc. University (GNOu) event. “ Digital Media, Video Games, & Virtual Reality: Harnessing Louisiana’s Creative Talent to be the Leaders in Digital Design”, 2nd Annual GNOu summit, New Orleans, Louisiana. September 20, 2023. [Panel Moderator]
  2. Ben Samuel, Guest Lecturer and Panel moderator for University of New Orleans MAMBO event. New Orleans, Louisiana. August 8, 2023. [Invited talk and panel moderator]
  3. Ben Samuel. “Guest Presentation for NIWC STEM Outreach Event”, Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic, New Orleans, Louisiana. July 17-18, 2023. [invited talk]
  4. Ben Samuel. “Guest Presentation for STEM Girls Day Out.”, Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic, New Orleans, Louisiana. November 21, 2022. [invited talk]
  5. Ben Samuel, Guest Lecturer and Panel moderator for University of New Orleans MAMBO event. New Orleans, Louisiana. August 11, 2022. [Invited talk and panel moderator]
  6. Ben Samuel. “Guest Lecture for ECS289G: Computational Storytelling at UC Davis.” Davis, California. March 9, 2022. [invited talk] [remote]
  7. Ben Samuel. “Games at the University of New Orleans” Guest Lecture for New Orleans Game Dev meetup, part of the games education summit. January 18, 2022. [guest lecture]
  8. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics in the Eighteenth Century.” Part of a panel presentation at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies April 9, 2021. [conference panel presentation]
  9. Ben Samuel. “Prom Week and Bad News” Guest Lecture for graduate level Interactive Storytelling class at the University of Kentucky, taught by Dr. Stephen Ware. March 24, 2021. [guest lecture]
  10. Ben Samuel. “Games at the University of New Orleans” Guest Lecture for Microsoft Games Camp, part of the ”Growing Your Games” panel. March 18, 2021. [guest lecture]
  11. Ben Samuel. “Games at the University of New Orleans” Guest Lecture for New Orleans Game Dev meetup, part of the games education summit. January 21, 2021. [guest lecture]
  12. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics Rules Authoring Workshop.” Online. May 17-24, 2020. [hosted workshop]
  13. Ben Samuel. “The Challenges and Triumphs of Applying Social Physics to the Eighteenth Century.” St. Louis, Missouri. March 21, 2020. [panel] [Cancelled due to COVID-19]
  14. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics Rule Authoring Workshop.” Baton Rouge, Louisiana, part of LSU FREN 7032 Graduate Seminar. March 5, April 9, April 16, April 23, 2020. [invited talk]
  15. Ben Samuel, “Ensemble and Camelot: Two Great Tastes that (Will Eventually) Taste Great Together.” Georgia Tech. Atlanta, Georgia. Part of the AAAI conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2019). October 9, 2019. [demo and invited talk]
  16. Ben Samuel. “Artificial Intelligence with Mixed Reality.” Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic (formerly SPAWAR), New Orleans, Louisiana. April 3, 2019. [invited talk]
  17. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics Workshop.” Nantes, France. March 6-9, 2019. [invited talk]
  18. Ben Samuel, James Owen Ryan, Adam Summerville. “Bad News at Northwestern University.” Northwestern University. Evanston, Illinois. February 22, 2019. [performance and invited talk]
  19. Ben Samuel, James Owen Ryan, Adam Summerville. “Bad News at the University of Chicago”. University of Chicago, Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory. Chicago, Illinois. February 21, 2019. [performance and invited talk]
  20. Ben Samuel. “Guest Lecture for ECS170: Artificial Intelligence at UC Davis.” Davis, California. December 20, 2018. [invited talk] [remote]
  21. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics Workshop.” Nantes, France. December 14-21, 2018. [invited talk]
  22. Ben Samuel, Aaron A. Reed, Edward T. Garcia, Kate Compton, Terence Soule, Josh McCoy. “Playable Experiences at AIIDE 2018.” University of Alberta. Edmonton, Canada. November 16th, 2018. [panel moderator]
  23. Ben Samuel. “Knowledge Extraction, Representation, and Presentation in (two) Games”. Knowledge Extraction from Games Workshop, Held at the Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-18). New Orleans, Louisiana. February 2nd, 2018. [invited keynote]
  24. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics”. Guest Lecture at Louisiana State University. Baton Rouge, Louisiana. January 25th, 2018. [guest lecture]
  25. Ben Samuel, James Owen Ryan, Adam Summerville. “Bad News at Piano Fight”. Piano Fight theatre. San Francisco, California. December 28th, 2017. [demo]
  26. Ben Samuel. “Crafting Stories Through Play”. New Orleans Gamedev Meetup New Orleans, Louisiana. October 19th, 2017. [guest lecture]
  27. Ben Samuel, James Owen Ryan, Adam Summerville. “Q\&A with the Creators of Bad News”. EECS 396, 496: Special Topics in Game AI (Prof. Ian Horswill). Northwestern University. Evanston, Illinois (remotely via Santa Cruz, California). May 31, 2017. [invited talk]
  28. James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel. “Bad News” Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, March 22, 2017. [demo]
  29. James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel. “Bad News” Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, March 22, 2017. [demo]
  30. Ben Samuel, James Owen Ryan, Adam Summerville. “Bad News” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, March 2, 2017. [demo]
  31. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics, Ensemble, and You!” Guest lecture in UCSC’s Computational Media Applications course, Santa Cruz, California, February 23, 2017. [guest lecture]
  32. James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville. “Bad News” Slamdance, Park City, Utah, January 20-26, 2017. [demo]
  33. James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville. “Bad News” Slamdance DIG showcase, Los Angeles, California, December 2-4 and December 10, 2016. [demo]
  34. Ben Samuel, James Owen Ryan, Adam Summerville. “Bad News” IndieCade, University of Southern California, October 14-16 2016. [demo]
  35. Alexander Zook, Michael Cook, Eric Butler, Kristin Siu, Matthew Guzdial, Mark Riedl, James Ryan, Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville, Michael Mateas, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Playable Experiences at AIIDE 2016.” 12th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2016) San Francisco, California, October 11, 2016. [demo]
  36. Ben Samuel, James Owen Ryan. “Bad News” Come Out and Play Festival, San Francisco, California, September 30, 2016. [demo]
  37. James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel. “Bad News” Roguelike Celebration, San Francisco, California, September 17, 2016. [demo]
  38. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics, Ensemble, and You!” Guest lecture in UCSC’s Interactive Storytelling course, Santa Cruz, California, May 17th, 2016. [guest lecture]
  39. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Anne Sullivan, Aaron A. Reed and Ben Samuel. “Ensemble Tool” Second Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (EXAG 2015), co-located with the 2015 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Santa Cruz, California, November 15, 2015. [demo].
  40. James Owen Ryan, Ben Samuel, Adam Summerville and Jonathan Lessard. “Bad News: A Computationally Assisted Live-Action Prototype to Guide Content Creation.” Second Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (EXAG 2015), co-located with the 2015 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Santa Cruz, California, November 14, 2015. [demo].
  41. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics, Ensemble, and You!” Guest lecture in UCSC’s Interactive Storytelling course, Santa Cruz, California, May 22nd, 2015. [guest lecture]
  42. Ben Samuel. “Social Physics, Ensemble, and You!” Guest lecture in UCSC’s Foundations of Interactive Game Design course, Santa Cruz, California, April 27th, 2015. [guest lecture]
  43. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Aaron A. Reed, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. “Prom Week.” Playable Experiences session at the Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2013), Boston, Massachusetts, October 14-18, 2013. [demo].
  44. Ben Samuel. “Affect, Theatre, and Expressive Intelligence” Affect Across the Disciplines Panel, University of California, Santa Cruz, October 23, 2012 [panel].
  45. Ben Samuel. “Inspirations” IndieCade Inspirations Panel, Culver City, California, October 5, 2012 [panel].
  46. Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Ben Samuel, Brandom Tearse, Michael Mateas and Noah Wardrip Fruin. “The Prom: An Example of Socially-Oriented Gameplay.” Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2010), Palo Alto, California, October 11-13, 2010 [demo].

HONORS AND GRANTS

  • 2023. Students I mentored awarded first place in the Undergraduate Oral Presentation category at the University of New Orleans’ research symposium \textit{InnovateUNO} Grand Prize for “ScholarUP.” (work conducted by undergraduate students Jumana Suleiman, Jenny Spicer, and Kailey Bergeron ) [HONOR].
  • 2023. Awarded the inaugural College of Science Faculty of the Year Award at the University of New Orleans. The College of Science consists of seven departments, with approximately 65 faculty members across them. I was the sole recipient of the award. [HONOR]
  • 2023. Awarded Tenure at the University of New Orleans. [HONOR]
  • 2023. Won grant through the Louisiana Board of Regents Industrial Ties and Research Subprogram (ITRS) as Co-PI (PI: Matthew Tarr), “Extended Reality Training Technology for Wind Turbines.” [PROPOSAL ACCEPTED. AMOUNT AWARDED: \$284,696, Project duration: 2023-2026].
  • 2022. Sponsored grant through Louisiana State University via the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing partnership between NASA, the State of Louisiana, LSU, and the University of New Orleans. “Digital Twins: The New Frontier in Manufacturing.” [PROPOSAL ACCEPTED. UNO SUBCONTRACT: approximately $800,000].
  • 2022. Innovate UNO Grand Prize for “The Haunted Halls of UNO.” (work conducted by masters student Norman Bennet) [HONOR].
  • 2022. Innovate UNO. “Faculty Involvement Award.” [HONOR].
  • 2021. Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4. “Bad News.” The ELC collects the most notable pieces of electronic literature produced every five years; roughly thirty percent of pieces submitted/nominated to the collection are accepted [HONOR].
  • 2021. Office of Naval Research Summer Faculty Research Fellowship Program (ONR SFRP). “Socially Aware Agents for Training and Collaboration” Start Date: June 1st 2021. End Date: August 15 2021 [ACCEPTED FELLOWSHIP. TOTAL STIPEND: $16,500].
  • 2020. Louisiana Board of Regents Research Competitiveness Subprogram (RCS). “Evaluating Shared Authorship in Interactive StoryWorlds.” Start Date: June 1st 2021. End Date: June 30th 2024. Grant ID: LEQSF(2021-24)-RD-A-26. [PROPOSAL ACCEPTED. TOTAL FUNDING: $143,565].
  • 2019. Best Paper Nomination for StoryAssembler: An engine for generating dynamic choice-driven narratives. at 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2019). [HONOR]
  • 2019. Travel grant awarded from the Louisiana NASA EPSCoR program to visit NASA in Pasadena, California.
  • 2019. National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement Grant Program. “Interactive VR Simulation of an Eighteenth-Century Paris Fair Theatre: VESPACE NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant – Level II.” (Proposal submitted by Dr. Jeff Leichman at Louisiana State University, I was a research and writing collaborator). [AWARDED. TOTAL FUNDING: $93,000].
  • 2018. Travel grant awarded from the Louisiana Board of Regents to visit the National Science Foundation.
  • 2016. Bad News wins IndieCade Audience Choice award (10 total winners out of roughly 1,000 submissions).
  • 2016. Sé ance is a finalist at the IndieCade festival of independent games (33 finalists out of roughly 1,000 submissions).
  • 2016. Bad News wins 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Student Game Competition in the category of Innovative Game Design.
  • 2013. My performance in Battleground is recognized with a Streamy nomination for Best Male Performance in a Drama.
  • 2012. Prom Week wins AiGameDev.com’s Editor’s Pick of Best AI in an Independent Game.
  • 2012. Prom Week is a finalist at the IndieCade independent games festival (33 finalists out of roughly 400 submissions).
  • 2012. Prom Week is the winner of the Intelligent Virtual Agents’ Gathering of Lifelike Agents demo and video festival.
  • 2012. Prom Week is featured in the IndieCade E3 Showcase.
  • 2012. Prom Week is a Main Competition finalist in Technical Excellence at the Independent Games Festival.
  • 2010. Earned the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) Grant.
  • 2007. Graduated with Highest Honors in Computer Science.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

NCAM

The NCAM project is a collaborative effort across several federal, academic, and professional institutions, including the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing (NCAM), NASA, Boeing, Louisiana State University, and the University of New Orleans. It has many research pillars. One pillar is creating a Digital Twin of the NASA Michoud Assembly facility. Another is developing virtual reality training modules across a variety of manufacturing-based concerns to enable training that is both remote and safe. Yet a third is to develop a summer camp program to expose middle-school students from underrepresented demographics to developing games in virtual reality. Although I am only one piece of this large project, my contributions include leading a team of graduate and undergraduate students to develop the VR training modules, as well as working with other faculty colleagues to organize and teach the summer camp. More information can be found at https://www.uno.edu/news/2022-09-14/uno-awarded-800k-grant-virtual-tech-lab-and-program.

VESPACE

The VESPACE project is a research collaboration between the University of New Orleans, Luisiana State University, and the University of Nantes. It combines the diverse talents of scholars across the globe and across the fields of computer science, the digital humanities, French studies, theatre, architecture, and history. The goal of the VESPACE project is to recreate an 18th century Parisian Saint-Germain Fair theatre in Virtual Reality on three levels: architecturally, aurally, and socially. The aim is to explore the use of artificial intelligence-based video game technology to test hypotheses about the relationship of performance and sociability in both the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, as well as to re-conceive how research on cultural history, performance, and philology are disseminated in the digital age. More information can be found at https://vespace.cs.uno.edu/.

Ownership Game (working title)

This work-in-progress is a combination game and tool which seeks to assist users in creating and sharing their own works of narrative. In it, players place characters in a sequence of comic strip like panels to create a story. By leveraging the social physics of the Ensemble Engine (see below), actions taken between characters in earlier panels will have rippling consequences throughout the story. Since players have access to any panel at any time, changing earlier panels can render later panels incoherent. Rather than forbidding this behavior, the game encourages such experimentation, splitting the world into a parallel timeline, revealing ‘what might have been.’ which the user can then choose to work on simultaneously. In addition to creating stories, the game has hooks into the Ensemble Engine itself, allowing players to dynamically change the social rules of the system in real time, if they so choose. Drama Management capabilities detect the kind of story the user is creating, and offers suggestions based on what it determines to be most narratively satisfying. The goal for this tool is to give players the ability to create stories of which they are proud; its playful nature is meant to combat the ‘blank canvas’ problem that can make starting creative pursuits in the first place so difficult; a writing buddy who lives in your computer.

The Ensemble Engine

The Ensemble Engine, like its predecessor Comme il Faut (CiF, see below) before it, is a social AI system. It allows users to specify rules and actions that govern social behavior in storyworlds. Also like CiF, it has support for ‘social physics,’ enabling actions of characters to indirectly give rise to new social state. Its design was directly inspired by CiF, and the lessons learned while creating that first system. As such, the Ensemble Engine enables the authoring of more fine-tuned rules and character actions, and is completely domain agnostic. Moreover, the Ensemble Engine comes bundled with an authoring tool to enable players to author the social rules that make up the world. I was on the Ensemble Engine from the beginning, using my expert knowledge of CiF–gained from both developing it and using it–to help drive the design of this next generation of social AI.

Bad News

Mixing social simulation and improvisational theatre in a piece of computationally assisted performance, a game of Bad News begins by simulating over a hundred years of history of a fictional small town. During this simulation, the townsfolk grow up, get jobs, get married, have kids, and more based on models of personality and actual historical census data. All the while, they are propagating information about their beliefs of the world; as they interact with each other, they share their mental models of their fellow townsfolk, such as what they look like or where they work. Bad News is a Wizard of Oz experience in which a player is thrown into one of these simulated towns and tasked with finding a specific person–with only a physical description of one of their family members as a clue–by asking questions of the townspeople. The role of every townsperson is portrayed by an actor, who must quickly assimilate the histories, personalities, knowledge and other salient details the simulation has created for any townsfolk approached by the player. After having a verbal conversation, the player follows any clues gleaned from the exchange to find another member of the town to speak with. Bad News has been invited to perform at several conferences, festivals, and showcases, and has won multiple awards, including the IndieCade 2016 Audience Choice award. In addition to being a designer of the game, I have had the good fortune of being the actor in every performance.

Prom Week

Prom Week is a work of interactive narrative and is the first example of a “social physics puzzle game” — an entirely new game genre enabled by playable models of social interaction (see Comme il Faut, below). In it, players take control of the social lives of a group of high school students during the week before their senior prom. The students have their own volitions for what they want to do with each other based on their current social context, but by manipulating that context, players can make conditions favorable for the students to achieve their social goals (or, alternatively, utterly ruin them). By leveraging the power of social physics, Prom Week has a state space large enough so that no two players have ever made exactly the same choices, after tens of thousands of plays. Since every player choice is a dramatically charged decision which will affect the social lives of the characters, to explore the system is to create a personal piece of dramatic narrative. Prom Week has been recognized in several venues including being a finalist in the Technical Excellence category of the 2012 Independant Games Festival, and a finalist for the IndieCade 2012 games festival. I was lead engineer on the project; designing and programming the game from its conception with a small team.

Comme il Faut

Comme il Faut (CiF) is an artificial intelligence system that implements a playable, authorable model of social interactions between characters in a storyworld. Inspired by dramaturgical analysis, CiF utilizes encoded patterns of social interactions, or social exchanges, in conjunction with an understanding of social and cultural norms to allow characters to both enact performances consistent with the storyworld, and determine what subsequent social moves are appropriate given the history and relationships of individual characters and the cast as a whole. Incorporation of CiF into video games and interactive narratives is meant to provide playable social interaction, the first major use case of CiF in this fashion is the game Prom Week. It also provided the foundation for the Ensemble Engine. The original version of CiF was spearheaded by Josh McCoy, but the system underwent iterative evolution as it was developed in tandem with Prom Week. I contributed to the design and implementation of CiF throughout its development.

IMMERSE

IMMERSE is a project funded under the DARPA Strategic Social Interaction Modules program. The goal of the project is to produce a game-based training environment that teaches players “good stranger” techniques, via practicing the skills necessary to have successful social interactions in unfamiliar languages and contexts. As the game simulates being placed in a culture with which the player has little experience, the primary means of interacting with the system is through full body movements such as waving and bowing. Speech recognition detects the tenor and cadence of the player’s voice, to determine how calm or agitated they are, if not their actual words. The end result is a system which teaches players how to quickly recognize and navigate the social norms in high-consequence, unfamiliar environments, giving them tools to deescalate high-pressure situations. To drive its autonomous characters and accommodate for dynamic behavior from the user, IMMERSE utilizes both the reactive planner ABL, pioneered in Façade, and takes inspiration from the metaphors of the social simulation system Comme il Faut, the foundation of Prom Week.

SpyFeet

SpyFeet is a mobile Android game which utilizes augmented reality, dynamic quest generation, natural language generation (NLG) and the compelling stories of traditional role playing games to encourage middle school girls to exercise. The player quickly discovers that she has the power to see and converse with animal spirits by using her phone. The spirits give the player quests which must be accomplished in the physical world, using the phone’s GPS and accelerometer. As quests are completed, the player earns the trust of the spirits and learns of the circumstances pertaining to a rash of mysterious environmental disasters. Each animal spirit had a distinct personality, realized through the NLG system Personage. When combined with our dynamic quest structure, which represented story events abstractly and allowed them to be re-ordered in response to player choices, multiple paths through the story could be followed with character-believable dialog and a minimal amount of increased authoring work. I worked with both the story team, which designed the story management system and the non-linear story to go with it, as well as the implementation team, getting the game to run on mobile devices.

CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP ORGANIZATION

  1. Program ChairFoundations of Digital Games Conference (FDG 2024), May 21st-24th 2024, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
  2. Program Committee International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS2022), December 4-7 2022, Santa Cruz, California.
  3. Program Committee AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE2022) (Software Track and Research Track), October 24-28 2022, Cal Poly Pomona.
  4. Organizer Workshop on Intelligent Narrative Technologies (INT2022), October 24 2022, Cal Poly Pomona. Colocated with AIIDE2022.
  5. Program Committee ACM International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games (FDG2022), September 5-8 2022, Athens Greece.
  6. Area Chair International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS2021), December 7-10 2021, Talinn University, Talinn Estonia.
  7. Program Committee AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE2021), October 11-15 2021, fully online due to Covid-19.
  8. Program Committee Experimental AI in Games Workshop (EXAG2021), October 11-12 2021, fully online due to Covid-19. Co-located with AIIDE2021.
  9. Program Committee IEEE Conference on Games (COG2021), August 17-20 2021, IT University of Copenhagen (Virtual). Two tracks: Interactive Narrative Track and Procedural Content Generation Track.
  10. Program Committee ACM International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games (FDG2021), August 2-6 2021, fully online due to Covid-19.
  11. Demo-Track Juror International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS 2020), November 4-6 2020, fully online due to Covid-19.
  12. Program Committee AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE2020), October 19-23 2020, fully online due to Covid-19.
  13. Program Committee Intelligent Narrative Technologies Workshop (INT2020), October 19-20 2020, fully online due to Covid-19. Co-located with AIIDE2020.
  14. Program Committee Experimental AI in Games Workshop (EXAG2020), October 19-20 2020, fully online due to Covid-19. Co-located with AIIDE2020.
  15. Organizer Social Physics Workshop, May 17-22 2020, fully online due to Covid-19.
  16. Program Committee IEEE Conference on Games (COG2020), August 24-27 2020, Osaka, Japan.
  17. Program Committee ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI2020), April 25-30 2020, Honolulu, Hawaii.
  18. Chair; Doctoral Consortium International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, November 19-22 2019, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.
  19. Program Committee AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE2019), October 8-11 2019, Atlanta, Georgia.
  20. Doctoral Consortium Reviewer AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE2019), October 8-11 2019, Atlanta, Georgia.
  21. Playable Experience PC Member AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE2019), October 8-11 2019, Atlanta, Georgia.
  22. Program Committee Experimental AI in Games Workshop (EXAG2019), October 8-11 2019, Atlanta, Georgia. Co-located with AIIDE2019
  23. Co-organizer; Education in Games Workshop ACM International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2019), August 27 2019, San Louis Obispo, California.
  24. Associate Chair; Theoretical Foundations Track International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling , December 5-8 2018, Dublin, Ireland.
  25. Chair; Playable Experience Track Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE’18) , November 13-17 2018, Edmonton, Canada.
  26. Program Committee Social Believability in Games Workshop (SBG2018), August 7 2018, Malmo, Sweden. Co-located with FDG 2018.
  27. Art Selection Juror International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling , November 14-17 2017, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.
  28. Program Committee Experimental AI in Games Workshop (EXAG4), October 5-6 2017, Snowbird Ski Resort, Utah. Co-located with AIIDE 2017.
  29. Program Committee Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE’17) Research Track, October 5-9 2017, Snowbird Ski Resort, Utah.
  30. Program Committee NPC Workshop, August 14-17 2017, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Co-located with FDG 2017.
  31. Program Committee Foundations of Digital Games (FDG2017) AI Track, August 14-17 2017, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
  32. Program Committee Foundations of Digital Games (FDG2017) Poster Track, August 14-17 2017, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
  33. Program Committee Social Believability in Games Workshop (SBG2016), August 1 2016, Dundee, Scottland. Co-located with Digra/FDG 2016.
  34. Program Committee Social Believability in Games Workshop (SBG2014), April 4th 2014, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Co-located with FDG 2014.
  35. Program Committee Social Believability in Games Workshop (SBG2013) November 12th 2013, Enschede. Netherlands. Co-located with ACE2013.

JOURNAL REVIEWS

I have performed reviews of one or more articles for:

Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games (TCIAIG), an IEEE journal.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)

PRESS

  • Kent Bye. “Modeling Social Dynamics in Gaming with Ben Samuel” Voices of AI. February 9th, 2018. [link]
  • Rebecca Rose Catalanello. “New Faculty Members Bring Innovative, Problem-Solving Research to the University of New Orleans” UNO Campus news. August 25th, 2017. [link]
  • Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Mateas, Michael. “The future is in interactive storytelling” The Conversation. May 4th, 2017. [link]
  • Wright, Steven T. “How the Mixed Reality Game ‘Bad News’ Brings Towns Like ‘Twin Peaks’ to Life” Rolling Stone. April 27th, 2017. [link]
  • Evangelista, Benny. “SFMOMA spotlights video games as art” San Francisco Chronicle. March 1st, 2017. [link]
  • “The Mountain Morning Show” Park City Television. January 20th, 2017. [link]
  • Stuart, Keith. “Video games where people matter? The strange future of emotional AI” The Guardian. October 12th, 2016. [link]
  • “Prom Week: How A Game Can Simulate Real-World Relationships” Game Career Guide.com. August 30th, 2012. [link]
  • Voss, Erik. “12 Colleges with Great Improv Troupes” Splitsider. August 27th, 2012. [link]
  • Eldred, Sheila. “PROM WEEK: THE NEXT ANGRY BIRDS?” Discovery News. February 14th, 2012. [link]
  • Hale, Mike. “The Shenanigans Behind the Slogans” New York Times. February 14th, 2012. [link]
  • Miljkovic, Nada. “Ben Samuel” Gamers on Game. 20 February 2012. [link]
  • Stephens, Tim. “‘Prom Week’ breaks new ground in computer game design” UC Santa Cruz. February 13th, 2012. [link]
  • Troxell, Lyle. “Prom Week Game” GeekSpeak, KUSP 88.9. February 12th, 2012. [radio broadcast, [link]
  • Costikyan, Greg. “Prom Week: Playin da Queen Bee” Play This Thing. February 12th, 2012.
  • Alexander, Leigh. “Road to the IGF: Expressive Intelligence Studio’s Prom Week” Gamasutra. January 31st, 2012. [link]
  • Meunier, Nathan. “8 Awesome Indie Games” Gamespy. January 30th, 2012. [link]
  • Meer, Alec. “IGF Factor 2012: Prom Week” Rock, Paper, Shotgun. January 30th, 2012. [link]
  • DeSantis, Nick. “Students’ Video Game Tests New Artificial-Intelligence Engine — at the Prom” The Chronicle of Higher Education. January 20th, 2012. [link]
  • Manuel, Rob. “Always Bet on Indie — Our Predictions for the IGF 2012 Awards” g4tv, January 19th, 2012. [link]
  • Griffiths, Daniel Nye. “Indie Games Finalists Announced – Lessons for the Big Players?” Forbes, January 11th, 2012. [link]
  • “2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists” Independent Games Festival. January 10th, 2012. [link]
  • Curtis, Tom. “GDC 2012 details new AI Summit highlights” Gamasutra, January 5th, 2012. [link]
  • Hubner, Alex. “UCSC Engineers are Trying to Make Video Games Smarter.” Santa Cruz Patch. October 24th, 2011. [link]
  • Caoili, Eric. “Prom Week: Facade Follow-up Social Game” Game Set Watch. October 20th, 2011. [link]
  • Soldofsky, Neal. “The Game of Life.” June 29th, 2011. [link]
  • Glasser, AJ. “Academic Project Prom Week Points to Problems With Truly Social Social Games.” Inside Social Games, April 18th, 2011. [link]
  • Nutt, Christian. “Future Of Games: Driving Gameplay Innovation With Technology Research.” Gamasutra, April 15th 2011. [link]
  • Thomsen, Michael. “The Era Of Behaving Playfully.” Gamasutra, January 19th, 2011. [link]
  • Lowensohn, Josh. “GDC: What’s next for video game AI?” March 10th, 2010. [link]