Matthew Lee is a fourth year student at USC with concentrations in Aerospace Engineering and Theatre, with his interests laying in a synthesis of the two: Virtual Worlds and Game space, as places both of fantasy and reality, singularity and liminality. A somewhat eccentric individual, he often wonders: if "all the world's a stage", then what is a virtual world? In his first life, he is heavily involved in health-related issues, working as a volunteer for the American Cancer Society as part of their web and virtual world efforts, and is currently hard at work on a thesis involving a radical new interpretation of The Tempest.@Email

Searle Huh
Doctoral student
Annenberg school for communication

Searle Huh received his B.A. and M.A. in Mass Communication at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea and M.A. in Communication at Michigan State University. He performed theses about ritualized uses of mobile phone and the relationship between cognitive skills and video game play. He participated in several academic and industrial projects like Video game and flow, a Network management consulting, and socio-cultural impact of the future. His current academic interests include 'activity' of media use, impact of mobility on media use, media interfaces, and various independent variables in video game play (i.e. gender, cognitive skills, and reality of the game graphic). In this project, He wants to conceptualize ‘orientation’ at the beginning stage, to explore similarities and differences over various online communities, and to elaborate the role of interface on the hardware and software level.@Email

Born in Madrid, Mr. Jorge Mora is an accomplished interactive media and film maker and an international researcher with a Ph.D. in Audiovisual Communication. Mr. Mora has participated & received several prizes for his creative work including the prestigious Cannes Festival, Inmperial Beach Film Festival, Injuve (Institute of Youth) & Ministry of Culture Award in Spain for his interactive short film “Inside Track” and the Festival of Saint Marie of Europe Award for his film “Nobody”. Also he has received the Award of the General Society of Authors and Editors in Spanish for publishing his dissertation “ The Hypermedia Interfaces on Videogames that are effective for the communication of educational & entertainment contents to teenagers”. Mr. Mora has worked and counted with several money grants, technical and/or human supports from the Postdoctoral Fulbright & Ministry of Education, Electronic Arts, Harold Lloyd Foundation, Interactive Media Division at the School of Cinema & Television, University of Southern California, the MedialabMadrid, the City Hall of Madrid, CRCA (Center for Research in Computing and the Arts) & the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California San Diego, the Community of Madrid & the European Union. He keeps working to forge his professional successful destiny into the new areas of the interactive & experimental social cinema.@Email

Yuxing Sang
Candidate for Masters in Communication Management
Annenberg school for communication

Yuxing, originally from Shanghai, had been working for ELLE magazine as a feature editor for three years. Now at USC, she is undergoing her Masters degree in Communication Management. In this project, she is incharge of differentiating between the virtual world mediums provided by Second Life and HIPIHI (a virtual world in China), and trying to figure out the differece in the online communities and virtual worlds between US and China.@Email

Stefanie Garden is currently enrolled in the Master of Public Diplomacy Program at USC, bringing together her interests in media, conflict resolution, government, and international relations. Prior to enrolling in the program Stefanie served as the Director of Media Relations for the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles where she was charged with monitoring and analyzing thousands of media outlets throughout the Southwestern United States including radio, television, print and web. Stefanie graduated from San Diego State University in 2005 earning her B.A in International Security and Conflict Resolution with a specialization in Cooperation, Conflict, and Conflict Resolution. Throughout her undergraduate studies, Stefanie held a number of internships including writing and editing for the international newspaper The Jerusalem Post in Jerusalem, Israel, and in the mediation division of the National Conflict Resolution Center in San Diego, CA. She was also able to travel to Italy as part of her Italian language courses and to Northern Ireland as part of a 6 month Peace and Conflict Resolution program through American University in Washington, DC. Stefanie is fluent in Hebrew and has studied several other foreign languages including Spanish, Italian, and Arabic.@Email

Victoria Moran
Candidate for Masters in Fine Arts
USC School of Cinema Television's Interactive Media Division

Victoria Moran is a USC MFA candidate in the School of Cinema Television's Interactive Media Division. Victoria is interested in MMORPGs and the effect that online gaming has on relationships and culture. Victoria maintains the virtual world database and is the project's machinima expert, capturing and editing video of all of the virtual USC PD events. @Email

Max Geiger is a student game designer working on his senior thesis within the USC School of Cinematic Arts' Interactive Media Division. Some of his previous work within USC includes a stint on The Redistricting Game for USC's Annenberg Center and a short machinima film which was screened at the Silver Lake Film Festival. A California native, he grew up surfing the Internet rather than the Pacific, which may help explain his deathly pallor and long standing interesting the dynamics of virtual communities.@Email