Carly Kocurek receives 2016 Sigma Xi/IIT Award for Excellence in University Research
Congratulations to Carly Kocurek, assistant professor of digital humanities and media studies, who was awarded the 2016 Sigma Xi/IIT Awards for Excellence in University Research in the junior faculty category.
Her work is focused the culture and history of video games and developing games for serious and educational purposes. One of her research projects, "Game Development for Early Language Acquisition in High-Risk Children,” aims to design a high-impact interactive game for children aged 24-36 months to increase language skills necessary for academic success. The project is a Nayar Prize finalist and is a collaboration with Jennifer Miller (Co-PI, psychology), Matt Bauer (linguistics) and Cynthia Hood (computer science).
Kocurek is the author of the book Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade, published by University of Minnesota Press, and of Brenda Laurel: Pioneering Games for Girls, which is forthcoming from Bloomsbury Press. She is the co-editor of the Influential Game Designers book series for Bloomsbury Press. Her articles have appeared in journals including Game Studies, The Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, and Visual Studies.
The annual Sigma Xi/IIT Awards for Excellence in University Research is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Office of Research, and the IIT Chapter of Sigma Xi to recognize the exemplary accomplishments in research, scholarship, and creative activity by faculty members and graduate students at Illinois Institute of Technology. Sigma Xi is a scientific research society of nearly 75,000 scientists and engineers who have been elected to the society because of their research achievements or potential.
