Brenda Laurel

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Brenda Laurel

This week I decided to focus on the designer I am researching for my Digital Design: Part 3 project.

Brenda Laurel is a writer, researcher, designer, and entrepreneur who's fields of work include human-computer interaction, interactive narrative, and cultural aspects of technology. Brenda attended Ohio State University were she received her MFA and Ph.D in theater and computer-based interactive fictions. In the 1980's she worked with CyberVision, Atari, and Activision as a designer and a researcher, and in 1990 she founded Telepresence Research which specializes in virtual reality. Brenda began a project with Interval Research Corporation, which led to the creation of Purple Moon in 1996, a production company targeted for pre-teen girls; from this experience, Brenda wrote the book Utopian Entrepreneur.

From 1999 to 2006 Brenda was appointed chair of two design programs, one at Art Center of College of Design and the other at California College of the Arts, as well as being an engineer at Sun Microsystems.  She is also on the board at a variety of places, including Cheskin, the Communication Research Institute, and the Comparative Media Studies program. She also does public speaking and consulting, one being a speaker at the TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference. She remains active in digital storytelling movements, IGDA, AIGA, and the ACM. Along with this, Brenda has written and edited a number of books, including Computers as Theatre, and has received ten prestigious awards, including being on the list of the 25 Most Influential Working Women in 1997.

After viewing the list of people to choose from for my project, I decided to pick Brenda Laurel to research.  One of the reasons behind this was my love for games, whether physical or virtual. She is an important advocate for girls who are gamers, which spoke to me. She is also impacting the world by being one of the amazing people to provide an interactive and informative approach to our rapidly growing World Wide Web. I hope one day I will be able to have a job, like she does, where I can do what I love to do, use my position to educate, and change the views of people around the world.


CONVERSATION

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