Professor Game Podcast

Minna Taylor is the Founder of Energize Your Voice, an NYC-based communication coaching and training firm. With an experiential approach, rooted in the principles of play and performance, she and her team support organizations to explore their full potential in public speaking, storytelling, and leadership communication. Notable clients include UBER, Red Bull, Citi, and E&Y. Minna earned her BFA from NYU Tisch and went on to earn her MFA in Performance with a concentration in speech and vocal production. Beginning her career as an accent reduction specialist, Minna went on to transfer her theatre training to developing an innovative approach for professional development.

Mike Montague is a game show host, public speaker, podcaster, and writer. He has been a radio DJ, karaoke host, virtual game show host, MC, and DJ for live events including opening for Billy Idol, Frankie Valli, and MC-ed at Toby Keith's Bar & Grill. He is also the founder of Playful Humans, a community designed to help the burned-out and board get re-energized and engaged with life. His mission is to help adults rediscover the power of play and avoid a midlife crisis. Find out more at www.playfulhumans.com.

Shawn Young is a co-founder and CEO of Classcraft, the Engagement Management System for schools. Since its launch, Classcraft has gained incredible traction with educators worldwide, providing tools to gamify their classrooms. Shawn taught 11th-grade physics for 9 years, holds a bachelor's degree in physics and master's in education from Université de Sherbrooke and is also a seasoned web developer. Shawn is the co-chair for UNESCO's global collective for SEL and digital learning, is the president of the Edteq Association and is an Ambassador for the Education faculty of the University of Sherbrooke.

Thijs de Vries is an expert in using gaming techniques for learning and changing behavior. As an international speaker, he talks to business leaders and managers worldwide about the impact of playful learning. In 2017, Thijs founded his latest venture Warp VR. A company that revolutionizes how people train by combining learning, gaming and Virtual Reality.

Trent Knox is the Founder & CEO of Esports Business Network, also known as EBN. Knox is a graduate of University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he studied Digital Cinema through the Academy of Creative Media, also known as ACM. His studies lead him to pursue a career in independent filmmaking, where he discovered the community & industry of Esports. His experience working in traditional media formats, such as television & film, gave him a foot in the door as credentialed media. His coverage of events such as SXSW Gaming, DreamHack, Anime ATX, Classic Game Fest, and others, has been seen by thousands of gamers. He hosts the EBN Podcast, where he interviews influential Esports Industry Leaders from grassroots to professional organizations. Today, Esports Business Network is home to thousands of Esports Business Professionals sharing knowledge & resources to further develop the industry of Esports.

Yes #Engagers we have made it to episode 200! Cheers to you, to our guests and to 200 more! On this brief episode we discuss about this celebration and also about the importance of taking a break (in games as in life) to make progress, to come back stronger and better.

Matthew Farber, Ed.D. is an assistant professor of technology, innovation, and pedagogy at the University of Northern Colorado, where he founded the Gaming SEL Lab. He has been invited to the White House, authored several books and papers, and frequently collaborates with UNESCO MGIEP and Games for Change. His latest book is Gaming SEL: Games as Transformational to Social and Emotional Learning.

Tracy J is the creator of the Feed Your Ninjas movement, the author of How to Feed Your Ninjas children's book and she's currently working on an idea for a video game app that helps you, well... Feed Your Ninjas. Having overcome an autoimmune disease, she is an advocate for being in control of your own personal health. She hopes to inspire others to take charge of their health but realized it would be easier to start at the foundation... children.

Matt Leacock is a board game designer living in Sunnyvale, California. In 2014, he quit his day job to work on board games full time. Before that, he designed games on nights and weekends while working as a user experience designer for a number of Silicon Valley companies. He's best known for his cooperative games, Pandemic and Forbidden Island, although he enjoys designing all sorts of games.

Lee Sheldon is a game writer/designer, and educator. Until recently he was a professor of practice at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is author of The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game. It's second edition was published in the spring of 2020; The Multiplayer Classroom: Game Plans, published in June 2021; and Character Development and Storytelling for Games, 3rd edition coming in 2022. Lee spearheaded the development of the first writing for games full concentration in North America at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the second at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Commercial video game credits include The Lion's Song (Switch, PC, Mac, iOS, Android); Suburbia 2 (Facebook); Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved (Xbox). Classes designed as games: The Janus Door, a cybersecurity class for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; Secrets: A Cyberculture Mystery Game, an online class for Excelsior College; and Crimson Dilemma, a business ethics video game for Indiana University. He recently consulted on a NASA-funded "escape room in a box" game involving the exploration of the moon for over 300 science museums and planetariums in North America. He has just begun work as writer/designer on a new commercial video game for a leading publisher. In a former life, he was a TV writer/producer with over 200 produced scripts from Charlie's Angels to Star Trek: The Next Generation