Academic Work
My passion for interactive fiction and game narratives developed through academia. As a first year at the University of Rochester, I was so fortunate to have taken a writing class about games, taught by my now advisor M. Kristana Textor. From there, my thirst for the academic knowledge behind interaction fiction grew just as my ambition to write the fiction itself!
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Below are excerpts from presentations, talks, and papers I've written on the subject of game narratives and interactive fiction. If you're interested to know more about my academic work, please don't hesitate to reach out!
Storytelling: The Final Frontier
A Live, Interactive Let's Play!
Breaking Boundaries with Video Games 2025
Keynote Presentation given April 25, 2025 at the University of Rochester.
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Description
For as revolutionary as the written word and moving pictures have been in our ability to communicate and tell stories, they are not the final frontier of storytelling. Video games present an opportunity to grow our artistic and narrative abilities beyond passive means, by bringing the audience into the story itself. In this talk, to highlight some of the ways video games are breaking boundaries in storytelling, we'll play The Stanley Parable: a single player, indie, narrative-driven game about an office worker and his Narrator. Together, we'll discuss how video games are different storytellers, how those stories connect with audiences, and if, as Jane McGonigal says, "video games can make a better world."
Building Empathy through IF
in Peaceland: Choose Your Memory
Narrascope 2024
Conference Presentation given June 23, 2024
at the Strong National Museum of Play
with M. Kristana Textor and Marcia Byrom Hartwell.
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Description
​What is empathy if not seeing the world through someone else’s eyes? Peaceland: Choose Your Memory is a video game set in a fictionalized country recovering from a conflict that took place decades ago. These narrative memories are drawn from testimonials and documentation of real events based on research, teaching, and observations collected during a 2022-23 Fulbright Scholar grant in Kosovo. We will share how to incorporate sensitive information with interactive narrative arcs while working with multiple collaborators.
Can I Borrow Your Shoes?
The Theory and Practice of Empathy
in Video Game Narratives
Narrascope 2025
Undergraduate Thesis Paper Completed May 4, 2025
and Conference Presentation Given June 22, 2025
at Drexel University, Philadephia.
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Description
When promoting the wonders of video game narratives to friends, family, and colleagues, I’ve often enthusiastically put forward this argument: “Video games, thanks to their unparalleled immersion and widespread access, are an underutilized tool for building empathy and experiencing different perspectives.” But one day, going through this exact discussion, I realized I had perhaps taken the central questions of my argument for granted. So I designed a thesis project to deconstruct, investigate, and analyze if and how video games build empathy. I will synthesize theories of digital narratology with psychology and neuroscience research and my personal experiences as a narrative designer to try and answer some basic questions: What does it mean to build empathy? Can video games build empathy, and if so, how? Do video games build empathy differently, or perhaps better, than other narrative mediums? What are, if any, the best practices for building empathy with games? And, perhaps most importantly, why are we asking these questions in the first place?