Karen Schrier is a doctoral student at Columbia University and an adjunct professor at Parsons The New School for Design. She also currently works full-time as an executive producer at Scholastic, where she spearheads digital initiatives for the Corporate and International divisions. Previously, she worked at Nickelodeon, BrainPOP and Barnes & Noble s SparkNotes. Karen was the Games Program co-chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH Conference in 2008 and 2009, and she currently serves on the advisory boards of the Computer Game Education Review (CGER) and the 2010 LEEF Conference. She has spoken on games and learning at numerous conferences, including GDC, SIGGRAPH, AERA, Games for Change, NECC, and SITE. She also helped develop numerous games and digital properties, such as Mission US: For Crown or Colony?; Scholastic s Harry Potter online, Summer Reading Challenge, and Scholastic.com; and Nickelodeon s ParentsConnect. Karen holds a master s degree from MIT and a bachelor s degree from Amherst College.
David Gibson is research assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, University of Vermont and Executive Director of The Global Challenge, a team and project-based learning and scholarship program for high school students funded by the National Science Foundation that engages small teams in studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics in order to solve global problems. His research and publications include work on complex systems analysis and modeling of education, web applications and the future of learning, and the use of technology to personalize education. His books include Games and Simulations in Online Learning, which outlines the potential for games and simulation-based learning, and Digital Simulations for Improving Education, which explores cognitive modeling, design and implementation. He is creator of simSchool, a classroom flight simulator for training teachers, currently funded by the US Department of Education FIPSE program. His business, CURVESHIFT, is an educational technology company that assists in the acquisition, implementation and continuing design of games and simulations, e-portfolio systems, data-driven decision making tools, and emerging technologies.
