Guildhall Research

Our World Changing Research Uses Serious Games for Good

In addition to the specialized research projects that students complete for thesis and directed focus studies, many important research initiatives take place in collaborations between 水多多导航 Guildhall faculty, students, and academic research teams. Some of these initiatives include the projects listed below.

水多多导航 Guildhall faculty Corey Clark joins cancer research initiative
People ForWords app playtest

Gamification Learner Initiatives

Screenshots of research app, Codex: Lost Words of Atlantis

Mobile Games for Adult Literacy: Cross-platform mobile technology help with adult literacy skill development

Simulations for Threat Response: Serious game platform helps train government agencies and officials around pandemic and pathogen threat responses

Educational Minecraft STEM+C Games: Commercial game platform education mods help learners access and acquire STEM-C skills

Embodied Learner Initiatives

The Avatar Project screenshots and photos

Games for Virtual Reality Surgical Simulations: VR simulations built with game engines train novice surgeons in Zambia by practicing portions of virtual hysterectomies, scored by the game and recorded for virtual feedback from real surgical faculty based in the U.S.

XBOX Kinect Motion Games for Mathematic Learning: Motion capture technology single-player games help math learners embody geometric principles intuitively with gestures

VR for Risky Situations: Avatar dyad simulations built with game engines help teens and young adults learn and practice behavioral skills to avert sexual violence and disengage from risky behaviors

Multiplayer Geometry Games: Collaborative Augmented Reality multiplayer team game helps math learners embody geometric principles with holographic shape manipulatives

Technology Enhanced Learner Initiatives

Mathfinder app screenshots

AR Scavenger Hunt Games for Algebraic Learning: Place-based Augmented Reality games, including the Mathfinder App, help math learners to learn algebraic principles

Racism Coping Skills Simulation: VR built with game engines educate about how racist experiences are linked to unhealthy behavior patterns and practice coping skills

Minecraft Games for Personalized Reading: Commercial game platform and AI agents powered by large language models provide universal access to learners with reading differences by offering tailored learning experiences to individual needs

VR Simulations for Building Emotional Intelligence: Virtual Reality dyad simulations built with game engines help to build emotional intelligence skills through the practice of virtual improv scenarios with a live puppeted avatar partner 

Machine Learning Initiatives

Screenshots of Minecraft Research for Cancer

Research for Fighting Human Trafficking & Games for Procedural Narrative Generation: Gen AI storytelling through large language models, in a procedurally generated mystery game crafted from real-time text inputs, shape an unfolding gameplay experience that helps law enforcement to fight sex trafficking

Human Computational Games used for Optical Scan Improvement: Leveraging human pattern recognition skills through gamification, research guides deep neural networks machine learning algorithms for more accurate segmentation with significantly smaller datasets; applied to retinal layer segmentation in optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans

Minecraft Games for Cancer Discoveries: Crowdsourced players as citizen scientists simultaneously cluster chemotherapeutic co-medication property data to supply training input into a deep neural network that learns and maps a solution for multi-drug resistant cancer

Gen-AI Psychometrics Games for Education: Retrieval-Augmented Generation and knowledge-based queries within a simulation game integrate a large language model for decision making and dialogue, while emotion and memory psychological models adapt the AI personality and social state; applicable models for educational simulations, adaptive AI, and storytelling

Puzzle-Based Training for AI Field Training: Autonomous agent distributed architecture enable the creation of a network of specialized AI agents capable of performing complex tasks in data analysis, visualization, and decision support







水多多导航 Guildhall Director of Academics works with students at MathWalks at the Dallas Arboretum


Research Partnerships

These opportunities for project-based research in game design have been facilitated by 水多多导航 via various grants, licenses and technologies over the years.

Some of the organizations that have partnered with the 水多多导航 Guildhall Graduate Game Development Program for research initiatives include:

Public Sector Partnerships

National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, US Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Justice National Institute for Justice, Wellcome Trust UK, Medical Research Council (UK), America’s Army, Texas Educational Service Center, Region 13, and the Texas Film Commission

Academic Sector Partnerships 

水多多导航 Simmons School of Education & Human Development Departments of Teaching & Learning and Department of Leadership & Public Policy, 水多多导航 Dedman School of Humanities and Science Departments of Chemistry and Department of Psychology and Department of Economics, 水多多导航 Lyle School of Engineering Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Louisiana State University, MU University Research Council, University of Oklahoma, and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Nonprofit Sector Partnerships

Center for Advanced Pathogen and Response Simulations (CAPTRS), Retina Foundation of Southwest, Literacy Instruction of Texas (LIFT), Dollar General Family Literacy Foundation, XPRIZE, talkStem, The Centsibility Project, and the PC Gaming Alliance

Private Sector Partnerships

BALANCED Media | Technology (BMT), Raytheon, Pangiam, Nerd Kingdom, Epic, Valve, Sony, nVidia, Samsung, Microsoft, Nintendo, Intel, Dell, Oculus VR, IBM, SJVR, Metalworking Fluid, and Complexity Gaming


A photo of 水多多导航 Researcher Candace Walkington working with a student on the Hidden Village project