Tracy Fullerton becomes director of USC's game program

Tracy Fullerton, a game designer and longtime professor at the University of Southern California, has become the first-ever director of USC Games.

Fullerton serves as director of USC’s Game Innovation Lab and is the chair of the USC Interactive Media & Games Division at the School of Cinematic Arts at USC. She joined USC in 1999. Her recent game was Walden: A Game, a simulation of Henry David Thoreau’s experience living at Walden Pond in Concord, Mass.

USC students have created games like Journey and The Unfinished Swan. The program has graduated hundreds of students.

USC Games is a collection of different game programs. It is a partnership between the department of computer science at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering and the Interactive Media & Games Division. The multidisciplinary program includes instruction in art, design and engineering. We recently visited the campus as saw teams as large as 60 students working on games in the Advanced Games Class.

“Tracy Fullerton is the perfect choice to lead USC Games,” said Elizabeth M. Daley, the dean of the School of Cinematic Arts, in a press release today. “She is widely considered one of the world’s most creative game designers. Her research and teaching treats game design as a collaborative endeavor that welcomes different approaches to creating games and gameplay experiences. The entire USC community will benefit from her leadership.”

“I’m very excited to take on this new challenge in advancing USC’s leadership in game education,” said Fullerton. “Our programs have set the standard in this emerging field and now we are looking eagerly to define the next level.”