Professional
Development & Thought Leadership
I actively contribute to the education and game-based learning community through speaking engagements and ongoing professional growth. I’ve presented at conferences like Serious Play and Generation Analog, sharing insights on playful learning, curriculum design, and instructional strategy. I also earned certifications in Product Development, expanding my expertise in bringing educational ideas from concept to implementation. These experiences reflect my commitment to innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning.
Let's Collaborate!
I’m always excited to connect with educators, designers, and organizations passionate about game-based learning, playful instruction, or K–12 curriculum development. If you're working on something creative and learner-centered, let’s build something great together.
In this presentation at Serious Play, I explored how strong educational games begin with clear learning goals. I demonstrated how to map academic objectives to game-based mechanics—creating experiences that are both engaging and instructionally sound. By grounding gameplay in content, educators and designers can build games that reinforce learning through meaningful interaction, not just entertainment. This session offered practical strategies for designing games that teach, challenge, and inspire.
At Serious Play 2024, I presented on the challenges learning games face in classroom adoption and how game designers can overcome them. My session, Classroom-Ready Games, explored why many educational games fail to gain traction with teachers—often due to lack of alignment with learning objectives, accessibility barriers, or classroom constraints. I shared actionable strategies for designing games that are instructionally sound, easy to implement, and inclusive for diverse learners. The goal: help designers create games that teachers actually use and students truly benefit from.
At Generation Analog, I presented on Wretched and Alone: Playing to Lose as a Solo Player, exploring how solo journaling games supported emotional processing during the pandemic. Centered on themes of isolation and perseverance, these games offered players a creative outlet to reflect and cope while quarantined. My talk highlighted how solo journaling games, especially those designed around loss and vulnerability, can foster meaningful introspection and emotional resilience, demonstrating the powerful intersection of game design and mental health.
