About Me!
Hi! I'm a final year undergraduate student at NYU, pursuing a double major in Game Design and Computer Science. I specialize mostly in programming and design/balancing, but am also familiar with sound mixing and art/animation. In my last two summers, I worked at two game studios on both small and large scale projects. In those positions, I worked in various capacities, including designing and balancing combat and progression systems, implementing new game features, and participating in ideation game jams.
As a gamer since my early childhood, I'd always been deeply passionate about games, and enjoyed studying the systems and mechanics behind a wide variety of genres on a deep level. Aside from this technical appreciation, I also have a keen interest in games as an art form, and am fascinated by the way the medium is constantly pushing new boundaries and redefining itself. Because of this, the Game Design program seemed an obvious fit for me, combining both technical and artistic aspects of games to foster within me a holistic understanding of the medium.
Given the key role that games played in my growth throughout my adolescent years, I have also taken an interest in the educational aspect of games. I firmly believe that games have the capacity to foster incredible personal growth and a strong sense of community, and am also fascinated by the largely unexplored possibility space of games in education. To this end, I worked as a Game Design and Development educator at the Brooklyn branch of New Visions Charter schools, designing a curriculum that aimed to expose high school students to fundamental game design principles and the workflow of game development. Last summer, I also worked at a studio that created educational games that are used both as supplementary and core curriculum at schools around America.
I take a highly competitive approach to many of the games I play in my free time; for instance, I was a frequent participant in Team Fortress 2 tournaments for many years, and am currently part of a team that competes for server-first clears of raid content in Final Fantasy XIV. I find playing games at such levels of mastery highly rewarding, as it allows me to achieve an intimate understanding of game systems that would not otherwise be possible. As my studies honed my capacity for critical play, I also find that my play sessions increasingly allow me to glean important lessons which can be applied in my own game development.
Apart from making and playing games, I also enjoy music performance, in everything ranging from vocal jazz to wind orchestra. Since moving to New York, I've joined a number of groups, including Master Voices, with whom I recently did a production of Bach's St. John's Passion at Carnegie Hall.
Well, that's all about me! Hopefully that gives you a small sense of who I am, and feel free to take a look around the site to see some of the work I've done thus far!