Executive Director | Solar United Neighbors

Anya has worked for decades on environmental projects and policy up and down the Western Hemisphere. This work has helped her grapple with the issue of sustainable development and how to make complex issues relevant to the community. Solar United Neighbors got its start when her son Walter asked, “Mom, can we go solar?” In her role as Executive Director, Anya has been instrumental in the passage of landmark solar legislation and regulation. In April 2014, the White House selected Anya as one of 10 White House Champions of Change for Solar Deployment for her groundbreaking work to deploy solar in the National Capital Region.

Aschoolman#9024 on Discord

   Get inspired by Anya Schoolman

Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Susana M. Morris is Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is the author of Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature (UVA 2014), co-editor, with Brittney C. Cooper and Robin M. Boylorn, of The Crunk Feminist Collection (Feminist Press 2017), and co-editor, with Brittney C. Cooper and Chanel Craft Tanner, of the forthcoming young adult handbook, Feminist AF: The Guide to Crushing Girlhood (Norton 2021). Her current research explores Black women’s relationships to Afrofuturism, the Anthropocene, and feminism.

Read Dr. Morris’s article in the BBC What Our Science Fiction Says About Us

   Get inspired by Dr. Susana Morris

Dargan Frierson is a climate scientist who makes simple mathematical models of large-scale climate features like rain bands and jet streams. He teaches classes at University of Washington on topics ranging from climate justice and clean energy to fluid dynamics. The EarthGames group that he co-founded has published over a dozen student-created games about environmental science. His scientific presentations are often kicked off with a song on the mandolin or banjo about the research topic of the day.

Read more About Dargan Here

Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies

Lisa Yaszek is Regents’ Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, where she explores science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures. Yaszek’s books include Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction (Ohio State, 2008); Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Wesleyan 2016); The Future is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women (Library of America, 2018); and Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century (co-edited with Isiah Lavender III, Ohio State, 2020). Her ideas have been featured in The Washington Post, Food and Wine Magazine, and USA Today, and she has been an expert commentator for the BBC4’s Stranger Than Sci Fi, Wired.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the AMC miniseries James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction. A past president of the Science Fiction Research Association, Yaszek currently serves as a juror for the John W. Campbell and Eugie Foster Science Fiction Awards.

Find her books here or watch her on YouTube

   Get inspired by Dr. Lisa Yaszek

Chris Bennett is an award-winning Game Designer and Stanford adjunct lecturer who has combined creative ideas with digital engagement to reach millions of players with his credited games.

Chris studies and practices ways to apply his science of Game Design Thinking to improve lives in the real world.
Chris has over 20 years of experience in the entertainment software industry, including three very successful franchises; The Sims, Diner Dash, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour.

Chris has talked about games and game design for major media outlets, including NBC TV, NPR, Forbes.com, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is called on by organizations such as Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, and USAID for his game design expertise.

Learn more about Chris’s work at Stanford here

Dylan has experience working as an animator and technical artist for Capcom, Hinterland, and Phoenix Labs. He  mostly focuses in Unreal but dabbles in Unity as well. Currently he is branching off to try his own thing in the Oculus Start program, focusing on Mobile VR and Hand Tracking applications.

See an example asset of his here.

Hannah Marsden is  a first year PhD student at the university of Hull (UK) carrying out research into sustainable manufacturing processes for offshore wind turbine blades.
She carried out a post graduate diploma in offshore wind energy and the environment where she researched the current issues faced by industry as well as the developing research.
She is involved in STEM outreach work and am passionate about making the field more accessible to the general public.

   Get inspired by Hannah Marsden

Hugo Bille is a veteran game designer, developer, writer and producer based in Sweden, with a stubborn focus on non-violence and environmental themes. He directed eco-centric games like the 2014 eco-horror short They Breathe and the 2018 forest adventure Fe, and produced or developed dozens of games of various sizes. After going freelance in 2018 he devotes much of his time to exploring how the games industry can boost both the immediate transition to a renewable economy and the longer-term shift to a truly regenerative culture. He now splits his time between building a new game with friends, nurturing the IGDA Climate SIG and running Doing Our Bit, a new podcast about making games in the decade of climate action.

Read a summary of Hugo’s presentation “Eight Ways Your Games Can Inspire Climate Action” here.

Hugo#1383 on Discord

Hannah-Marie Garcia is currently in a Master’s program in the College of Earth, Ocean, & Environment at the University of Delaware. She will complete her Master’s degree in Marine Policy in summer 2021. Her research focuses on improving stakeholder engagement with Native American Tribes in offshore wind development. She is passionate about transitioning energy systems to low carbon technologies in a socially responsible way.

Her work as a science writer for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in 2018 exposed her to the importance of science communication in broader communities. More importantly, her Environmental Studies & Sustainability major and Anthropology minor from Sewanee, the University of the South, allowed her four-year undergraduate thesis to focus on the importance of documenting and understanding the cultural values surrounding whaling practices in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Her past thesis work highlighted the potential for current cultural and religious practices to promote sustainable management of cetaceans (whales) in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. Her thesis work contributed to a paper that was published in 2021.

As an aspiring sustainable leader, she has a passion for applying research and scientific thought to the environmental issues that many coastal communities are facing today. Her past fieldwork experience has allowed her to travel and study environmental management and culture in areas around the globe including Peru, Cambodia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean. Moreover, she has skills in policy analysis, communicating research findings across diverse disciplines, and engaging key stakeholders. Hannah-Marie’s passion for increasing the United States’ renewable energy initiatives and broader interests in ocean and coastal resource management is what drives her to continuously be open to new solutions and creative approaches to the myriad climate challenges we face as a nation.

   Get inspired by Hannah-Marie Garcia

Krill Audio is an interactive audio team based in Malaga (Spain). The team consists of sound designers, music composers and audio programmers. We have developed a new audio middleware called Krilloud.

Krilloud is a node-based audio middleware that facilitates the design and implementation of interactive audio in a creative, simple and efficient way.

Our goal is that developers, programmers and audio professionals save time and expand their creative possibilities.

We are audio evangelists so to help the community we deliver an affordable and easy-to-use tool, while streamlining the workflow.

We aim to give access to everyone to a tool that breaks barriers and allows them to enter the exciting world of interactive audio.

Designed by experienced professionals in sound engineering, audio programming and music production, KRILL AUDIO aims at optimising the design and implementation processes of interactive audio for all roles involved.

As an interactive audio middleware, Krilloud enhances workflows and maximizes resources by facilitating among programmers, game developers and audio professionals. Everyone can join and design interactive audio thanks to its handy and robust concept design tool.

Learn More about Krill Audio on their website and  in the media.

Mike is an ex-military computer and aerospace engineer who loves being a generalist. You’ll find him playing games, making games, tinkering with hardware, enjoying board games with friends and family, or hiking in the rugged paradise of Vancouver Island.

Since leaving the military in 2018 Mike has been working in and around indie video games including a year-long stint with Indie MEGABOOTH (until COVID) and running a local game developer group in Nanaimo, B.C.

Currently, Mike is a part of a team making Evershade Arcade, a narrative game that explores building joyful relationships between players and games inside a retirement community.

In Mike’s Words: “I LOVE helping and watching others learn, so feel free to hit me up! Even if I can’t solve your problem, hopefully I can push you in the right direction.“

Samantha is a second-year Masters of Marine Policy student at the University of Delaware, studying the social perceptions of offshore wind and other forms of renewable energy. Following graduation from the University of Maryland in 2017 with a degree in Environmental Science and Policy – Marine and Coastal Management, she spent two years travelling the country as an environmental educator. She worked with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, San Diego County Public Schools, and the Don Lee Environmental Education Center in North Carolina.

Sam will be attending law school next year with the intention of becoming an energy and environment lawyer. But more importantly, she is thrilled to be helping out at this year’s Climate Jam and seeing so many talented students brainstorm solutions to climate change!

   Get inspired by Samantha Bingaman

Saurabh Biswas is a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Energy and Society at Arizona State University. He holds a PhD in Sustainability and is the co-founder the Grassroots Energy Innovation lab. His research focuses on the complex relationships of energy systems, poverty and sustainable development, particularly in disadvantaged communities. He works with communities, civil society groups and small businesses to design energy projects for sustainable development in communities in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Philippines, Nepal, India, and Uganda. Saurabh currently coordinates a multi-year sustainable energy transitions applied research project in Sierra Leone, Africa

   Get inspired by Dr. Saurabh Biswas

Victoria is a postgraduate diploma student leading to a PhD studying the impacts of climate change on the offshore wind energy industry. This experience is enabling her to understand the science behind climate change and see how the impacts spread across so many parts of our life that she never thought of before, ranging from less snowy ski resorts to meteorological disasters.

Previously, Victoria studied different renewable energy technologies in her MSc and knows what drives and stalls the development of each of them. Despite the renewables being called “clean”, it’s important to understand that they, just like everything man-made, have their own footprint which should be considered as part of the green growth.

Victoria’s work at an onshore wind farm developer as a project development support and then as a siting engineer revealed the fascinating and puzzling complexity of renewable developments. The large number of stakeholders involved and the conundrum of searching for the right place for a wind farm to satisfy all of the stakeholders makes the industry appealing for those who like solving problems.

Learn more about Victoria here.

Ryan Boudinot is Co-founder of the game studio Boudinot/Sigismondi with artist Floria Sigismondi. He grew up on seven acres of forests, pastures, and ponds in Skagit County, Washington and is the author of four books of fiction, including the novel Blueprints of the Afterlife, a finalist for the Philip K Dick award. In the late 1990s, Ryan started working for Amazon, which at the time only sold books, and was a member of the launch teams for Marketplace, Prime, and other initiatives. In the decades since, he’s worked as an editor and writer at Microsoft, Netflix, Expedia, Immersion Networks, and virtual reality startup incubator CoMotion Labs. His collection of essays, The Shape of Reality to Come, chronicled the emergence of Seattle’s VR community. Ryan is the founder of Seattle City of Literature, the organization that successfully applied for Seattle’s inclusion in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

Read Ryan’s Work:

How to Save the Planet by Playing a Video Game

Amazon Author Page

Simon works at the University of Hull, where he teaches about Renewable Energy.

Simon’s research specialization is marine renewable energy – wave and tidal – but he’s also happy to talk with people about solar, wind, and more general matters around energy transition.

In his own words:

Read “After the tsunami: how tidal energy could help Japan with its nuclear power problem”

Watch a short intro to his renewable energy course 

   Get inspired by Simon Waldman

Principal Artist & Cofounder of Freeform Labs

Camille Kanengiser is the principal artist and cofounder of Freeform Labs, a cutting-edge development studio crafting solutions for clients in the entertainment and XR industries. Her passion is innovating at the intersection of art and technology. While working on award-winning original content and client-facing projects, she’s had broad experience working within the realtime-3D pipeline; her responsibilities have included in-engine asset implementation, performance analysis & optimization, 2D & 3D asset creation, animation, interaction design, visual effects, documentation, and consultation. She looks forward to supporting this year’s Climate Jam teams!

Max Pixel is the principal system architect at Freeform Labs, a consultancy that works at the cutting edge of the entertainment/XR industry.  Leveraging a deep understanding of how software works down to the transistor, in combination with a lifelong background in award-winning creative direction, Max’s primary area of expertise is in game engines and related realtime-3D technologies.

Max is most well known for leading the development of ElemenTerra, a VR game about nature stewardship, which recently won IndieCade’s Environmental Design award.