SFU Graduate Studies

Reposted on August 6, for their second call for volunteers.

Terry Lavender and Natalie Funk, graduate students in SFU’s School of Interactive Arts + Technology, are looking for participants in a research study on women, gaming and weight loss.  Participants will receive a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate for spending two hours watching demos, playing video games and completing a questionnaire.

You may be eligible if you:
• Are a woman between the ages of 25 and 50
• Are fluent in English
• Like playing casual or social video games
• Are interested in new ways to improve your weight and health
• Are available to travel to SFU Surrey (accessible by SkyTrain and bus)

To register, visit http://wetcoast.org/limesurvey/index.php?sid=85786&lang=en

• Terry’s website
• Terry on LinkedIn
• Terry’s columns in the Vancouver Observer
• Part of Terry’s master’s thesis: Homeless: It’s No Game
• Master’s thesis: Homeless: It’s No Game — Measuring the Effectiveness of a Persuasive Videogame

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Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]

A group of seven grad students from the Centre for Digital Media will launch their first mobile game, Crash Craving, for iPad and iPhone on July 15. Team members are Shahrzad Aghasharifianesfahani, Carmen Chow, Mohamed El-Eryan, Airlia Hansen, Jeffrey Lane, Nickolas Marouhos, and Alice Tai.

Digital Touch Games is formed by a group of seven graduate students from the Centre for Digital Media as part of their final pitch project. As a multidisciplinary team, they have collaborated together to develop the concept all the way through production and polish. Guiding them was Ashley Blacquiere, an experienced game designer and fellow alumni, as well as various industry consultants. The team was excited about attending the Game Developer’s Conference 2011 in San Francisco this Spring and showcasing their game at the Centre for Digital Media booth.

Here’s a sneak peek at the game trailer.

Crash Craving Announcement Trailer from Digital Touch Games on Vimeo.

• SFU’s Centre for Digital Media (SFU Calendar: Master of Digital Media Program)
• Crash Craving website and team bios
• Crash Craving twitter feed
• Crash Craving Facebook page

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Graduate students are invited to form a team of three or more to create a graduate school project around Singapore’s economic activities.

The award is for up to US $10,000 and includes a trip to Singapore for the graduate student team.

The program is open to graduate students of all disciplines, including arts, business, engineering, humanities and sciences. Participants should be graduate students with at least two years of working experience and ideally the project has relevance to their current research interests. Projects may take multiple forms, including research papers, presentations or even presented in alternative media.

The application deadline for the next round of awards is October 31, 2011. For more information, email  singapore@contactsingapore.sg with the subject line “Re: GSP 2011”.

• Graduate School Projects@Singapore
• Project proposal form
• See also: SFU MBAs head to Singapore

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Joshua Tanenbaum is working on his PhD at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology in the next year, and is enthusiastic about his experience at Simon Fraser University:

I came to graduate school after being inspired by the work of SIAT researchers at the SIGGRAPH conference. I’ve always had too many interests and hobbies and not enough time to focus on them; graduate school has allowed me to sharpen my skills as a designer, an artist, and a scholar.

In my five years here I have learned how to shape my interests into projects and ideas that are contributions to global research communities. Since coming to SFU I have made films, written music, designed games, created props and costumes, and developed new storytelling technologies. I have traveled around the world and interacted with some of the great minds in games, narrative, design, and technology.

This photo shows me as Captain Chronomek, my winning entry into the student design competition at this year’s Tangible and Embedded/Embodied Interactions conference. These days, when I’m not being a superhero, I am working on a project with the City of Vancouver to engage families in emergent dialogues about sustainability issues using a tabletop game that I helped design; editing a book on nonverbal communication in virtual worlds; co-chairing a conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling; and, lastly but most importantly, writing my dissertation.

He’s also the winner of the Office of Graduate Studies’ 40th Anniversary contest, and will be taking home an iPad 2 for this creative and fun winning contest entry.

• Joshua and Karen Tanenbaum’s website and blog: The Geek Movement
• EMIIE (Engage Me In Interactive Experiences) Lab profile
• MA Thesis: Believability, adaptivity, and performativity : Three lenses for the analysis of interactive storytelling
• CAT Games
• Current research: GRAND Greenest City Conversations Project
• YouTube: The Reading Glove
• Vancouver Observer: Technology and art captivate at Mini Maker Faire (with bonus interview on YouTube)
• The Express profile of Josh and Karen Tanenbaum on Youtube.

And last, but not least, on YouTube, the design process of Captain Chronomek!

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The Malaysia International Scholarship (MIS) is an initiative by the Malaysian Government to attract top students to pursue post-graduate and post-doctoral studies at twenty public and four private universities in Malaysia.

Priority fields of study include science and engineering; agriculture and fisheries; economics and Islamic finance ; information and communication technology; biotechnology; biosecurity and food safety; infrastructure and utility; environmental studies; and health (including but not limited to, nursing, medicine, clinical pharmacy).

Each scholarship consists of air tickets to Malaysia, tuition fees, monthly living allowance, annual grant for books and internal travel and more.  PhD and post-doctoral students will also receive a thesis allowance, a conference travel grant and a journal publication grant.

Applications must be submitted through the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia’s online application system. The application deadline is June 15, 2011

• Applicant Guidelines PDF
• List of Malaysian Universities PDF

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Congratulations to Andrew Au, an engineering graduate student, for taking first place in this year’s BCNET Digital Media Challenge Competition for his video (linked above), entitled Veaver, an Interactive Multiview Video System.

It was a good year for the university: A team of undergraduate students from SFU’s SIAT program took the second place spot in the competition.

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Congratulations to Suraaj Aulakh, a graduate student in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry whose business concept took first prize in the SFU Business Concept Competition, held in April 2011.

The business concept was for LabTricks.com, an educational website that she founded with five other MBB students: Daniel Chiang, Linda Zhang, Suraaj Aulakh, Kelly Kim, Cindy Li, and Charles Stevens (l-r in photo above).

This isn’t the team’s only award: Last year, they took top prize for their Sequence Me entry into Genome BC’s Gene Screen video competition.

• LabTricks.com
• SFU press release: Science student wins best business concept
• SFU press release: SFU video on genomics gets thumbs up
• Genome BC: BC Science Graduates Win Top Prizes in Genomics Short Film Competition

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Three songs from Moby’s latest album are available for free download from a Vimeo contest website. The contest is to create a video using one of those songs.

Ten finalists will be highlighted on the Vimeo website and the winning contest entry will be screened at the New Directors’ Showcase in Cannes.

Submission deadline is midnight EST, May 9, 2011. Good luck!

• Moby/Vimeo contest website

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BCNET’s Digital Media Challenge is inviting you to demonstrate your latest digital media work to a live audience and have a chance to win up to $1000.

The contest is open to all SFU students and student teams and there are categories for diploma, undergrad, master’s and PhD students. Entries will be judged on creativity and need for high-bandwidth networks.

Shortlisted entrants will receive a free pass to the BCNET Conference 2011 on May 3-4 to present their projects and encounter some excellent networking opportunities.

• Submission form

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As an SFU graduate student, you are encouraged to register in the free MITACS Step workshops. These professional development workshops will be invaluable to you immediately and upon graduation with your degree. International students and recent graduates (within the last three years) are eligible to attend.

Workshops are offered on:

• Basics of the Business Environment (includes etiquette, time management, networking)
• Communication (includes presentation skills, technical writing)
• Project Management
• Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property

Check the calendar of upcoming workshops and click on the “Register Here” link to register for each workshop.

Please note: Workshops are free but you will be charged a $50 cancellation fee if you do not cancel within the designated cancellation period.

For more information please contact Fiona Fu at fionaf@mitacs.ca

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