Expanded Summer School 2026

Michael Lankes is a professor at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg Campus, specialising in game art, game design and interaction design. His research focuses on playful interactive environments, the analysis of player behaviour (including gaze interaction), level design and the evaluation of user experience factors in games. He is actively involved in the Hagenberg degree programmes in Digital Art and Media Technology and teaches students the basics of game development and production. In his work, he often collaborates with partners from media psychology and usability, focusing on interactive environments and the perception of characters.

Katherine Isbister is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she directs the Social Emotional Technology Lab, specialising in Human-Computer Interaction and Games. Her research focuses on how design choices impact emotion and social connection in digital and playful computer-supported experiences. She is the author of several influential books, including How Games Move Us, and was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the TR100 Young Innovators. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with international research labs and major industry partners such as Microsoft, Google, and Electronic Arts.

Simone Kriglstein is a professor at the Department of Visual Computing at Masaryk University, the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) and the University of Vienna. Her expertise lies in the field of HCI, particularly in the design and evaluation of user interfaces and interaction methods in various areas, with a strong focus on games. Her research encompasses game user research, game data visualisation, serious games, gamification, player and spectator experience, and educational technologies. She has published numerous papers at leading HCI and gaming conferences and in specialist journals.

Günter Wallner is Professor of Game Computing at the Institute for Computer Graphics at Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Linz and has also worked at Eindhoven University of Technology and Ontario Tech University. His research focuses on games user research and game analytics, in particular the development of methods for analysing and visualising large amounts of data on player behaviour in order to improve games and the gaming experience. His expertise includes information visualisation, player modelling, spatio-temporal data analysis in games, and the assessment of player needs for post-game analysis.