After graduating from C.D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge, VA in 1996,
I came to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, PA to study Computer Science (CS).
I knew that I wanted to have another area of study in addition to CS, but wasn't sure what the best program for me would be. I ended up jumping around the University, trying
Robotics, Information/Decision Systems, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) before settling on a second degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) as my secondary concentration.
During this time, I took a class called Building Virtual Worlds, an interdisciplinary course consisting of students from various departments at CMU such as
Architecture, Art, CS, Design, Drama, ECE, and HCI.
This class changed the course of my studies, opening my eyes to a number of things, including the power of small interdisciplinary teams, the value of spending time building good tools for authoring and visualization, and the fun of creating interactive worlds.
It was through another class, Dramatic Structures of Interactive Games, that I realized that a significant amount of research could be done in the area of interactive storytelling and entertainment. To date, there has been
relatively little published literature on the subject. I was not alone in this realization - it was this year that the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) was started at CMU by co-directors Don Marinelli and Randy Pausch.
I dropped my plans to get a second degree in ECE, and became a member of the original pilot class of the ETC, hoping to learn more about what makes interactive storytelling so compelling.
As a result of my being in the ETC, I had the opportunity to help the Virtual Worlds Group at Microsoft Research prototype new software, and be part of a team that created an interactive experience for children that is on exhibit at Zeum in San Francisco, CA.
Now that I have graduated from both the CS and ETC programs, I work for Rockstar Games, in San Diego, CA.