Colleen Macklin

Colleen Macklin is an American game designer,^[1] an associate professor of media design at Parsons The New School for Design and founder and co-director of PETLab (Prototyping Education and Technology Lab) which focuses on games for experimental learning and social engagement.^[2]

Colleen Macklin
Colleen Macklin, 2014
Occupation(s)	Video game designer Professor
Years active	1993 - Present
Notable work	PETLab
Website	https://www.colleenmacklin.com/

Education

She has a BFA in Media Arts from Pratt Institute and has done graduate studies in computer science at City University of New York and in international affairs at The New School.^[3]

Career

On July 26, 2012, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy launched an Academic Consortium on Games for Impact.^[4] Macklin was one of 16 academics invited to join the invitation-only group.^[5]

PETLab, the research group Macklin founded and co-directs, is known for encouraging "creative approaches to, and deeper, dynamic understandings of, the complex issues society faces today, such as climate change, wealth and resource distribution, and media literacy."^[6][7][8] The project also aims to get games to teach the player by allowing them to reflect on not only what the game is about but also how it's structured.^[9]

She was part of game design group Local No. 12 who made games like Dear Reader, an online word puzzle game, and The Metagame, a board/card game .^[10]

In 2011, she was a visiting scholar at University of California, Los Angeles's Art | Sci Center + Lab.^[11]

Macklin also speaks about "what it means to be a woman in games" as well as speaking on the topic of gay gamers.^[12][13] In 2014, Macklin appeared in the LGBTQ video games documentary film Gaming In Color.^[14]

Books

• Iterate: Ten Lessons in Design and Failure (2019) ^[15]
• Games, Design and Play: A Detailed Approach to Iterative Game Design (2016)
• Games, Learning, and Society: Learning and Meaning in the Digital Age; Chapter 22 (2012)

Movies

• Gaming in Color (May 19, 2015)
• Gameloading: Rise of the Indies (April 21, 2015)^{[citation needed]}

Selected talks and exhibitions

• "#1ReasonToBe panel" (March 2014), Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, California, United States^[16]
• "Media Lab Conversations Series: Colleen Macklin" (January 30, 2014), MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States^[17]
• "We're Here..." (October 26, 2013), QGCon: The Queerness and Games Conference, Berkeley Center for New Media, Berkeley, California^[18]
• "Keynote Speaker" (November 2012), 2012 National Council of Arts Administrators Conference, Columbus, Ohio, United States^[19]
• "Blur 02: Power at Play in Digital Art and Culture" (2002), New York City, New York, United States^[20]