My dissertation, which was titled, “The Work/Play of the Interactive New Economy: Video Game Development in the United States and India,” has morphed into “Developers in the Mist,” It was an ethnographic examination of creative collaborative practice in the context of the rapidly globalizing videogame industry. I received my Ph.D. from Renssealaer Polytechnic Institute in May of 2008. I defended my dissertation for the Science and Technology Studies Department in March of 2008. I released that document under a Creative Commons License. My committee chair was Kim Fortun and my committee members were Mike Fortun, Nancy Campbell, Atsushi Akera, and Christopher Kelty. You can find all materials related to the dissertation and subsequent projects linked from DitM.
I began my academic life as a computer scientist and mathematician, started studying computer graphics, that led to 3D scientific visualization work for JPL, was snatched up by a game company in La Jolla, worked on 3D sound systems for N64, PS1, PC, Mac, Linux until it(‘s clients) went bust, tried graduate school in CS, wasn’t happy, worked for an Autodesk subcontractor (and general design automation company), put people out of work with automation tools, got tired of that, and with the help of a Marxist feminist and a sociologist found “STS” as a (un)discipline, got in, studied Open Source Software development for a while, got tired of it, did NSF funded research studying work at video game companies in the United States and India. My primary field site got bought by Activision and got a PhD studying work practice in the “game industry” in the US and India. Simple right? You can see some of the pretties I create here.
Since then I have finished my dissertation and begun teaching at the University of Georgia. I have started a Gamelab there and am slowly working my way towards several other projects. Each speaks to different aspects of my work. That site will be further developed throughout the next few months.
You can find more here.