About the Author

Photo by Hilary Laurel Hulteen

Brenda Laurel has worked in interactive media since 1976 as a designer, researcher, writer, and teacher. She currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science and Affiliated Faculty for Games and Playable Media at University of California, Santa Cruz. She served as Professor and Founding Chair of the graduate program in design at California College of the Arts from 2006 to 2012. She designed and chaired the graduate Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (2001–2006) and was a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems Labs (2005–2006). Based on her research in gender and technology at Interval Research (1992–1996), she cofounded Purple Moon in 1996 to create interactive media for girls. In 1990 she cofounded Telepresence Research, focusing on virtual reality and remote presence. Other employers include Atari, Activision, and Apple. Her books include The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design (1990), Computers as Theatre (1991), Utopian Entrepreneur (2001), and Design Research: Methods and Perspectives (2004). She earned her BA (1972) from Depauw University and her MFA (1975) and PhD in theatre (1986) from Ohio State University.