GAMIFICATION - Key Persons
Dr. Jonna Koivisto is a postdoctoral researcher at the Gamification Group. She holds a PhD on information studies and interactive media from the University of Tampere, where she has worked at the Game Research Lab. Dr. Koivisto also holds an M.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of Jyväskylä.
Dr. Koivisto's research focuses on gamification and consumer behavior and motivations online. She has authored several seminal empirical works on gamification as well as e.g. spearheaded efforts to synthesize existing academic literature on the topic. In addition, her research interests include consumer behavior in games and other online contexts as well as new online business models. Koivisto's research has been published in various internationally respected scholarly journals (E.g. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Computers in Human Behavior, International Journal of Information Management) and conferences (E.g. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, European Conference on Information Systems) as well as featured in the popular press (E.g. The Wall Street Journal, Quartz, The Atlantic).
Dr. Marigo Raftopoulos is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Tampere University and is a member of the Gamification Group. Marigo is currently working on Augmented-Humans, an EU-funded project (MSCA-IF) dedicated to the study of how we can augment the best of human and artificial intelligence to accelerate creativity and innovation in business applications.
Marigo has been working as a strategic business advisor to technology startups, industry and government on human-centred technology design and digital transformation. She is also currently a Guest Editor, for the Special Issue: Games in a Brave New World for the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations. Marigo earned her PhD in enterprise gamification at RMIT University, Australia, and also holds an MBA and Bachelor of Economics.
Job Titles:
- Senior Researcher at Tampere University
Dr. Mattia Thibault is a Senior Researcher at Tampere University. He joined the Gamification Group in 2018 with his project ReClaim, (Marie Sklodowska Curie IF) dedicated to the study of Urban Gamification. In 2021 he has joined the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (GAMECULT).
Dr. Thibault has earned a PhD in Semiotics and Media at Turin University a within SEMKNOW, the first pan-European doctoral program on semiotics with a dissertation on Playfulness and Meaning-Making. He has been visiting researcher at Tartu University (Estonia), The Strong Museum of Play (Rochester, NY, US), Helsinki University (Finland), Waag technology and Society (Netherlands) and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands).
His research interests revolve around urban play, spatial gamification, speculative design, urban futures and cultural semiotics. To these topics he has dedicated dozens of papers and talks as well as co-design workshops and activist interventions.
He is passionate about play, memes, toys, and little rubber dinosaurs. No, he does not plan to grow up.
Job Titles:
- Researcher at the Tampere University
Pauliina Tuomi (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Tampere University, Pori Unit. She got her M. of Arts from the University of Turku in 2007, and her PhD in Digital Culture in 2015. Her doctoral dissertation, Inviting the Audience - Interactive, Participatory, and Social Television in Finland, focused on interactive SMS-based TV-entertainment, participatory features of convergence, both technical & thematical, between TV and internet + linkages of the use of social media (Twitter, Facebook). Her research on iTV entertainment is also a part of the permanent installation of The Finnish Museum of Games (Catapult, SMS-game). During the last 10 years, Tuomi has worked in various research projects dealing with mobile learning, exergaming, serious games, game-based learning and has headed educational technology projects for example MAGICAL- Making games in collaboration for learning (EU funded), 2012-2014, which was selected as EACEA success story in 2015. She has also headed the projects Coding skills as a success factor for society, KiSA: The effects of gamification in facility services jobs and Hype - Multidisciplinary serious game education. She has also worked as a coordinator at the University Consortium of Pori in research-/international affairs and has been launching the GamiFIN conference in 2017.
Her research interests include 21 st century television, controversial TV content and participatory & provocative media culture. Her current post doc study concentrates on provocative media and TV-production. She has received several grants for her PhD and post doc research for example from the Finnish Cultural Foundation (central and Satakunta regional funds) and the Ella and Georg Foundation. In brief, the phenomenon of provocative television production simply refers to content that is in some way disturbing the common values, norms, and even morality. The topic is approached through: discourse analysis on TV content (selected television formats, multiplatform material & paratexts online), internet inquiry to viewers (disseminated in cooperation with selected channels), content analysis of press & rhetoric (media observation: topics highlighted) and interviews of the production/channels (e.g. strategies around the purchase of the transnational formats.) The provocative television content is understood as diverse, culturally-driven phenomenon that describes the current state of popular culture. Through this intermedial research, the society will gain knowledge and update the current state of Finnish television content as a factor for maintaining or dissolving societal values.
Tuomi has produced a wide range of national and international publications, and reviewed articles for both national and international journals. She has also been active in publishing popularized texts and have been giving professional interviews to the local and national media from several viewpoints during the years.
Joseph Macey (M.Sc.) is a Researcher and Doctoral Student at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Tampere. His Master's thesis addressed heuristics as a method for game evaluation, while his current work investigates the relationships between consumption of video games, esports, and gambling. Research interests include problematic and potentially problematic media consumption, cognitive biases in media users, emergent forms of gambling associated with games, digital economies and virtual items. He has been awarded personal grants for his work from The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies. Prior to his academic career he worked in the public and private sectors and is a qualified Project Manager (Prince 2). His work has been published in Computers in Human Behavior, and presented at various international conferences and seminars.
Laura Cosio is a Doctoral Researcher at the Gamification Group, Tampere University focusing on 3D/VR simulations and information visualization. In the past, she has worked in visualizing a variety of different topics such as sustainability, ecology, and astrophysics by using gamification to make information entertaining and approachable to the user. With a M.A. in Digital Media and a B.F.A. in Graphic Design, she has always been passionate about how we communicate information and the audience experience. Her research involves creating immersive experiences in VR with gamification and creating intuitive learning environments.
Sangwon Jung is a researcher and PhD candidate at the Gamification Group, Tampere University. His current research focuses on the design and development of novel wearable gaming devices. Prior to his research career, Jung has worked as a professional designer. He holds a master's degree in Collaborative and Industrial Design from Aalto University.
Wilk Oliveira is a Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science and Computational Mathematics at the University of São Paulo (USP - Brazil), with an exchange program at Tampere University (TUNI - Finland), M.Sc. in Computer Science at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL - Brazil) with an exchange program at the University of Saskatchewan (USask - Canada) and B.S. in Computer Science Education at the University of Pernambuco (UPE - Brazil). He is an assistant professor in the Postgraduate Program in Computer Science and Computational Mathematics at the University of São Paulo and was a visiting lecturer in the MBA Program in Management at the Tiradentes University Center (Brazil). He is a researcher at the Laboratory of Computing Applied to Education and Advanced Social Technology (USP), Gamification Group (TAU), and the Learning Lab (Durham University (DU) - UK). He was a researcher at the Center for Excellence in Social Technologies (UFAL) and the Multi-Agent Distributed Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing Lab (USask). In the public sector, Wilk collaborated with the Brazilian Ministry of Education and the Innovation Center for Brazilian Education, working on projects related to the design, application, and evaluation of educational technologies. As an entrepreneur, even during the B.S, Wilk Oliveira was an enthusiast and precursor of Educational Games Virtualization in Brazil, co-founding the first Brazilian startup in the segment, Virtualize Games. At the academy, Wilk has been working on a series of research, extension, and development projects, maintained by important international funding agencies, such as São Paulo Research Foundation (Brazil), Ceibal Foundation (Uruguay), and Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program (Canada), where he has worked on the design, application, and evaluation of various educational technologies, generating different products and publishing numerous scientific studies in some of the main international conferences and journals related to Educational Technologies. Besides, he has also organized several important scientific conferences in the field of Educational Technology, with emphasis on the Brazilian Computers in Education and the Latin American Conference on Learning Objects, also serving on the scientific committee (as a reviewer, coordinator of technical sessions, and co-editor) of important international conferences and journals. Even as a young researcher, Wilk Oliveira has already received several awards, with a highlight to the best Brazilian M.Sc. Thesis in the fields of Computers in Education Games, becoming the first researcher winning both awards. In addition to these, he has also won the best paper award at different international conferences. His main research interests are Computers in Education (especially, but not exclusively: Flow Theory, Gamification and Educational Games) and Computer Science Education.