Jan L. Plass

Dr. Jan L. Plass, Professor and Paulette Goddard Chair in Digital Media and Learning Sciences at New York University, is the founding director of the CREATE research center at NYU and co-director of the Games for Learning Institute. He draws from cognitive science, learning sciences, computer science, and design to envision, design, and study the future of learning with digital technologies, with a current focus on games, XR, and AI. He has published widely and is, with Slava Kalyuga, author of Rethinking Cognitive Load Theory (Oxford, 2025) and the lead editor of Cognitive Load Theory (Cambridge, 2010), the Handbook of Game-based Learning (MIT Press, 2020) and the Handbook of Learning in VR (MIT Press, 2026). Dr. Plass is a frequent national and international keynote speaker and advisor, helping governments and businesses to increase the human capacity in an ecology of lifelong learning.