Founder & CEO
Stephanie Barish
Stephanie Barish is an award-winning producer and a prominent figure behind leading initiatives that are guiding the direction of the digital media, interactive arts, and multimedia community in the twenty-first century. In 1999, she founded and created the blueprint for the Annenberg Center for Communications’ Institute for Multimedia Literacy (IML), urged by George Lucas. Previously, Ms. Barish worked as producer and director of multimedia publications and creative director of Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. In these positions she designed and produced the Foundation’s acclaimed multimedia publications, research interface, and award-winning CD-ROMs and websites, and participated in Emmy- and Academy-Award-winning documentary films. Between her work at these two organizations, her programs attracted nearly $20 million in support. She continues to foster innovations in multimedia expression as Founder and President of Creative Media Collaborative.
Chairman of the Board
Sam Gustman
Sam Gustman is the Chief Technology Officer for Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and consults to archives and organizations working with technology in digital video access, security, and preservation. Current clients include the Library of Congress, the Recording Academy, and DreamWorks. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Gustman’s experience includes hardware and software development of IR, MMW, and GIS research. Gustman was also the Director of Technology for Sega GameWorks, where he was responsible for the development and production of the technology used to build location-based entertainment centers nationwide.
Festival Director
Sam Roberts
Sam Roberts is the former director of the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. Roberts has unique hands-on expertise in building and operating an independent game festival, developing guidelines, creating a structured submission and evaluation process, working with a diverse jury, and holding a position of great respect within the independent game making community. He earned a B.S degree from Northwestern University, where he studied theater and cognitive science. He has worked in the entertainment industry as a writer, producer, director and designer in several media. He has also served on the managing board of several production companies, including the Sight Unseen Theater Group, of which he is currently a member.
Festival Chair
Celia Pearce
Celia Pearce, PhD is a game designer, artist, researcher, curator, teacher, and author of The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution (Macmillan, 1997), and other writings on game design and culture. She has been developing interactive theme parks, attractions, and museum exhibitions since 1983. She served as creative director on the multiple-award-winning virtual reality attraction, Virtual Adventures for Iwerks Entertainment and Evans & Sutherland. Her clients have also included Walt Disney Imagineering, the Jerde Partnership, and Purple Moon Software. From 1998-2001, she held research and teaching appointments at the University of Southern California where she was instrumental in launching the interactive media program in its film school and producing a landmark conference on game design and culture. Since 2001, she has held research and teaching appointments at University of California, Irvine, where she co-curated two exhibitions, including “ALT+CTRL: Festival of Independent and Alternative Games,” for the Beall Center for Art & Technology. She is currently an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Festival Producer
Drea Clark
Assistant to the CEO
Erin Shaver
Chair, Business Development & Marketing
Amy Allison
Amy Allison is the VP of Games at Fat Droid, a production/post-production creative agency. Fat Droid has 30 collective years in video game advertising, broadcast promotion, and music video production. One of the company goals is to make ad agency services available and affordable to Indie Game Developers and Interactive Entertainment Start-ups.
Along with her publisher (Vivendi Games) and large ad agency (mOcean) background, Amy brings her partnership and branding experience to multiple non-profits.
As a VP on the executive board for Women in Games International, she has found great success working on game industry lecture series, mixers, and conference events. She is currently in the process of creating a Video Game Design Badge for GirlScouts of America.
As the new chair for INDIECADE Strategic Partnerships and Marketing, she hopes to make INDIECADE the must-attend event of the year for independent studios and conference partners.
Public Relations, The Bohle Company
Robert Brown
Special Projects
Akira Thompson
Gamemaker Relations
Riley Pietsch
Riley Pietsch is a game design student at the University of Southern California, majoring in Interactive Media within the School of Cinematic Arts. He served as Jury Intern for IndieCade in 2011 and volunteered for the festival in years before that. His aspirations to pursue a career in game design are driven by the innovative and meaningful works created by members of the independent game community.
Outside of his interests in the industry, he trains parkour and freerunning, loves studying philosophy, and enjoys finding a good font.
Asia Regional Chair
Taiyoung Ryu
Chair, IndieCade East
Matt Parker
Matt Parker is a game designer, teacher, and new media artist. His work has been displayed at the American Museum of Natural History, SIGGRAPH Asia, the NY Hall of Science, Museum of the Moving Image, FILE Games Rio, Sony Wonder Technology Lab, and many other venues.
His game Lucid was a finalist in Android's Developer Challenge 2 and his project Lumarca won the "Create the Future" prize at New York Maker Faire 2010. He created the game Recurse for the inaugural No Quarter exhibition at the NYU Game Center. Recurse was a finalist for Indiecade 2010 and won the "Play This Now!" award at Come Out and Play 2012. He has taught at NYU ITP, the NYU Game Center, Sarah Lawrence College and the School for Visual Arts.
Internet Director
Jerrett Zaroski
A graduate of Carleton University (Film Studies), Jerrett Zaroski has an extensive background in media technology and digital audio-video manipulation. As the former Technical Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, he overhauled the entire projection system to digital and HD formats with great success, and continues to advocate for digital standards within the independent motion picture arts communities. Jerrett works as Film Programmer for the Canadian Film Institute, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and freelances as a web developer and media arts consultant. He longs for the carefree days of Doom WADs and QuakeC.
Marketing Coordinator
Mei Dean Francis
Social Media Manager
Chris Cantoni
Social Media Producer
Alejandro Quan-Madrid
