Clara Fernández-Vara is a game scholar, designer and writer. She is an Associate Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center. Her area of expertise is narrative in games and how it can integrate with game design, focusing on adventure games. She is particularly interested in applying methods from textual analysis and performance studies to the study of video games and transmedia artifacts. Clara’s videogame work is grounded in the humanities, informed by her background in literature, film and theatre. Before joining the NYU Game Center, Clara was a a researcher and game developer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She holds a Ph.D. in Digital Media from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. Clara has presented her work at various international academic and industry conferences, such as DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association), and Foundations of Digital Games and the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC). She has worked both in games for research as well as in the commercial sphere. Her first book, "Introduction to Game Analysis" has been published by Routledge.

Chaki Ng is passionate in novel ways to connect users and contextual content and information, across various devices+screens. Currently, he is the general manager of Viacom Lab, a brand new user-centered and experimental team within Viacom to explore new things, at the intersection of media+product+design. Prior to the Lab, he spent 3 years as head of product at Viacom Music and Logo Group for entertainment brands MTV, VH1, CMT and LOGO. He rebuilt the team from 2 product owners to 2 vp of product and 7 product owners to develop multi-platform, video-centric products (responsive websites, 15 iOS/Android/XBOX apps) for TV shows and events like VMA, with hundreds of millions of streams a year. He led the transformation to user-centric, MVP, and agile/squad-based development processes, helped started data science initiative for MTV News, and led future looking mindset as corporate liaison of MIT Media Lab. Previously, Chaki investigated place-based discovery and social experiences at the MIT Media Lab, by co-deploying a real-time, pervasive network of 30 large touchscreens using RFIDs and AI algorithms in its new building. He also was a veteran of adaptive learning experiences via Interactive Constructs, a 10M+ annual revenue and 60+ employee technology company that he co-founded (with $0 investment dollars) and sold, which powered leading products like Read180 for education companies like Scholastic, Harcourt, and Pearson. Chaki holds PhD and SM degrees in computer science from Harvard, where he designed auction-based algorithms to solve complex multi-user resource allocation problems in distributed systems including wireless sensor networks and cloud computing. He also holds MBA (MIT Sloan) and BS (Northeastern) degrees. Chaki is an advocate of using user-centered design and various rapid innovation methods (from Stanford D.School and LUMA Institute) for product development as well as general business design problems. He continues his extensive startup involvement by acting as mentors at accelerators and is currently Expert-in-Residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab, advising student startups, and acting as competition judge.

Marty Perlmutter got involved in what came to be known as VR in 1970. He invented a sensory stimulation and monitoring helmet called the Crown, reminiscent of the Oculus Rift but with eye-tracking and brain-wave-monitoring gear. It was conceived as more than an entertainment device. The Crown was designed to help understand how TV works on the eye and brain. Patents were filed for the 3D TV apparatus and for the entire assemblage. Later in the decade, Marty built a large scale interactive TV exhibit at Boston's Museum of Science, "Vision and Television." It included an interactive 3D TV display along with a wrap-around video synthesizer environment under visitor control. Later, Perlmutter built a portable 3D TV display for the New York Hall of Science. Marty produced the first interactive movie game, "Murder, Anyone?" in 1982. He did a series of games for consumer and arcades, worked with Hasbro Electronics on instant-branching games and designed interactive retail environments for Sony Signatures. Perlmutter advised Looksmart on broadband technology, produced video for AOL and helped launch the San Francisco Multimedia Development Group, the precursor of today's SOMA concentration of web businesses. He co-founded Hook-Up! new media recruitment and ran it through the first bubble, placing hundreds of workers in web ventures. For the past 10 years, Marty has run an education nonprofit, Multisensory Interactive Learning, with the mission of creating mobile math learning games to aid the underserved. The first in the series, Tangram Jam, is now available from Apple and Google Play. Marty has always worked in interactive and immersive technologies and is pleased that what were once dreams can now be made real - but it's going to take some work. He's a passionate elephant conservationist, working to produce and distribute ads on social media in China to reduce consumer demand for ivory.

Omer Shapira is the head of Virtual Reality at Fake Love. His practice combines live action elements with procedural graphics, using custom-built software and hardware. Previously, Omer was a VR Developer at Framestore, The NYU Media Research Lab and the MIT Media Lab, and a Filmmaker and VFX Artist in Israeli TV. His work was presented at Tribeca Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and The Barbican. His commercial VR work won an Art Director's Club Award and was a Webby Awards Honoree. Omer has a B.Sc in Mathematics from Tel Aviv University and a Master's from the NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Steven Tabakin is a New York-based producer with credits in independent feature film, television movies, documentaries, and live theater. He formed Tashtego Films with Margaret Whitton and Warren Spector, based on the the idea that great storytelling has the power to transform individuals and societies. He recently produced the film A Bird of the Air, which stars Rachel Nichols and Jackson Hurst and was directed by Margaret Whitton. Next up is the film, The Moment When, written and to be directed by James Lapine. He was George C. Wolfe's Associate Producer at The Public Theater from 2003-2005, responsible for the development and production of many projects. In 2004 he produced Bob Balaban's film adaptation of The Exonerated for Court TV, starring Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Delroy Lindo, Susan Sarandon, Aidan Quinn, and David Brown, Jr. From 1999-2003 he produced original drama programs for PBS, including A.R. Gurney's Far East; Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles; Beckett on Film (2002 Peabody Award); and live broadcasts of The Man Who Came to Dinner and The Women. Documentary credits include Tantalus: Behind the Mask; The Topdog Diaries; and Changing Stages, Richard Eyre's six-part series on the theatre of the 20th Century. At The Public Theater from 1994-98 he worked on Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk; The Wild Party; Saturn Returns; On the Town and many other shows.