2025 HumanitiesX Fellows HumanitiesX, funded by the Mellon Foundation, is DePaul’s Experiential Humanities Collaborative. Professor Lisa Dush, Faculty Director of DePaul’s HumanitiesX program announced the 2025 HumanitiesX fellows. Matters at Play’s Professor Tran will expand her transformational game design and immigration games work by collaborating with Dr. Ramya Ramanath and their community partner, Sanctuary Working Group, to teach “Finding… Continue reading HumanitiesX 2025 cohort announced
Happenings
Reckoning with Redress with Full Spectrum Features
Professor Lien Tran joins Full Spectrum Features (FSF) as the game design lead for their “Reckoning with Redress” project, an educational program (film + interactive site) to learn about the justice and reparation movement for Japanese Americans wrongfully incarcerated during World War II. This is FSF’s final project as part of a trilogy on Japanese… Continue reading Reckoning with Redress with Full Spectrum Features
Toma el Paso is featured as one of “50 Games for Inclusion, Equity, and Justice”
Lien Tran and Dr. Katherine Moran (St. Louis University) co-authored a double-blind, peer-reviewed chapter for the 4th edition of Learning, Education, & Games: 50 GAMES TO USE FOR INCLUSION, EQUITY, AND JUSTICE, published on January 23, 2024, by Carnegie Mellon University Press. The chapter features Tran’s game Toma el Paso as an educational resource on… Continue reading Toma el Paso is featured as one of “50 Games for Inclusion, Equity, and Justice”
Lien Tran receives Excellence in Service award
Lien Tran receives a 2023 IndieCade Horizons faculty award for Excellence in Service. This award recognizes an individual who has made important and impactful contributions to the academic games field through service. Awardees are selected for excellence in one of three categories: teaching, innovation, and service. Faculty are eligible to be nominated by a peer or… Continue reading Lien Tran receives Excellence in Service award
Lien Tran to join as trainer for 2023 YSEALI Game Changers
The U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur has invited Lien Tran via a funded cultural engagement to participate as an international game design trainer and workshop facilitator for YSEALI Game Changers (YGC) in May 2023. YGC brings together mid-level professionals to learn about and explore, through a 2-day game jam,… Continue reading Lien Tran to join as trainer for 2023 YSEALI Game Changers
Tran joins 2023 Games for Change’s Game Plan program
Lien Tran was selected and participated in the 2023 Games for Change’s Game Plan program with a focus on integrating game design into museum education programs through specialized professional development sessions. Tran and DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) explored the use of games for DePaul Art Museum’s Learning Studio, a Chicago-centric museum education platform that uniquely… Continue reading Tran joins 2023 Games for Change’s Game Plan program
International Women’s Day op ed on virtual reality for a just and real-world reality
International Women’s Day 2023 On #InternationalWomensDay, Lien Tran published an op ed in New Thinking Magazine entitled “Leveraging Tech to Address Gender-Based Violence Impactfully” on how emerging tech, including the VR simulation “A Just Reality” project, can fill a major gap in essential skills training for law enforcement who respond to and investigate sexual assault & domestic… Continue reading International Women’s Day op ed on virtual reality for a just and real-world reality
Games for civics op ed published in New Thinking
The majority of Americans know little about civics and government; video games could prove the unorthodox solution to our miseducation. This is the topic of Professor Lien Tran’s second op ed as a Public Voices fellow with The OpEd Project. On February 4, 2023, New Thinking magazine published her op ed entitled “The Game of Life: Leveraging Tech for Civics Education“. Educators… Continue reading Games for civics op ed published in New Thinking
Emerging technology’s role for telling critical Asian American history
Professor Lien Tran is part of DePaul University’s 2022-23 The OpEd Project’s Public Voices fellowship. Professor Tran’s first op ed entitled “Lunar New Year Offers a Chance to Reflect on Asian American History“, was published in VISIBLE magazine ahead of Lunar New Year on January 22, 2023. In this op ed, Tran shares examples for how… Continue reading Emerging technology’s role for telling critical Asian American history
Transformed Reality VR Workshop (2022)
Transformed Reality VR Workshop Meaningful Play 2022, East Lansing, MI, USA October 12-14, 2022 Presented by Lien Tran, Brighten Jelke, Lynn Baus, Chryselle Rego, LeAnne Wagner In this workshop participants will learn about a set of resources and processes for creating a VR training experience and test a working project in a VR headset (Oculus… Continue reading Transformed Reality VR Workshop (2022)
Teaching the Next Generation of G4C Developers
Teaching the Next Generation of Games for Change Developers Lien Tran participated in the 2022 Games for Change festival as a panelist speaking about how she has been approaching teaching the next generation of games for change developers as a college professor. Below are a few of the slides shared during her segment. About the… Continue reading Teaching the Next Generation of G4C Developers
Dwell wins GLS Creativity and Design Award
Judges for the 2022 Games+Learning+Society conference’s game showcase awarded Dwell the Creativity and Design award in June 2022 in Irvine, CA. The games showcase selections were double-blind peer-reviewed. 30+ games were selected for showcase, and a panel of expert judges reviewed the games for award consideration. There were a total of four awards, 1 of… Continue reading Dwell wins GLS Creativity and Design Award
Poor Not Guilty Challenges featured as a National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC) resource
Matters at Play collaborated with several subject matter stakeholders on the creation of Poor Not Guilty: Fines and Fees Challenge, including the National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC). The challenge is now available on the NHLC’s website along with a suggested Street Law lesson plan. The Fines & Fees Challenge is an interactive educational tool based on a… Continue reading Poor Not Guilty Challenges featured as a National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC) resource
Rethinking GBV Training for Law Enforcement
Lien Tran was invited and presented at the international Gender Justice and Human Rights Symposium organized by and held at University of Miami School of Law on April 21-22, 2022, with financial travel support from UN Women. Tran joined a seasoned panel of international retired and active members of law enforcement from International Association of Women Police (IAWP, International… Continue reading Rethinking GBV Training for Law Enforcement
Teaching Games with Games at GDC 2022
On March 22, 2022, at the 2022 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA, Professor Lien Tran joined an esteem group of educators to share new ways to look at games for change and learning. This Educators Summit session called “Teaching Games with Games 7: Changing the Game” was particularly useful for seasoned and new… Continue reading Teaching Games with Games at GDC 2022