Summer 2024 and Spring 2024 Game Design Openings at STAGE Lab for UChicago students (In Person 2023-2024 Academic Year)

Can digital games and card games help guide players to an imaginative understanding of the core principles of quantum physics?  

Led by Professor Kawalek, the quantum games research team is an interdisciplinary team inventing, prototyping and playtesting adaptations and original game ideas.

Summer 2024( and spring 2024) will focus on developing, prototyping and playtesting STAGE Lab's Quantum Games. Students will continue developing games that have been created by the lab over the past year in addition to brainstorming and beginning work on a brand-new Quantum Game.

Internship Positions Available:

• Game Designers with project management skills and experience/strong interest in developing original games
• Game Engine Programmers (Unity (C-Sharp/Java)/ Unreal Engine) ideally with STEM background for multiplayer, individual and/or experiential digital games
• Visual Artists with experience in digital, illustrative, and/or pixel art for sprites, cards, assets, illustrative title screens
• Graphic Designers for analog game assets (cards, chips, rulebooks, signage)

The positions are open to undergraduates, graduate students and Postdoctoral Scholars who are enrolled at the University. Join a team of postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates from aerospace engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, neuroscience, physics, comparative literature, philosophy, psychology, theater and visual arts to develop a series of analog, digital, and experiential games.

The Quantum Games team’s goal is to create engaging, interactive and memorable games that afford a first-hand experience with the concepts of wave-particle duality, measurement, superposition, randomness, tunneling, interference, coherence, quantum fidelity, and entanglement. The games aim to illuminate these concepts and inspire the player to utilize them as tools and strategies to overcome the challenges that arise in game play.

With a desire to make cutting-edge research and science accessible to everyone, the design philosophy of the games align with that of STAGE: instead of an explicit intent to teach a curriculum, the games aim to invoke curiosity, spark moments of playfulness and catalyze play-centric learning modalities.

If interested, please submit your CV to stagelab@uchicago.edu, current GPA (if applicable), along with a short statement

In your statement, please include hours per week that you would be able to commit to working on this project. We are accepting applications from third- and fourth-year students, and, on a case-by-case basis, freshmen and sophomores with broad experience.

Although STAGE does not offer direct funding, students do receive appropriate credit (i.e., they will be listed in publications and patents), and we do whatever is possible to enable students to apply to the various University funding channels available. Work study opportunities are available for eligible students. Students may also have the option of working with STAGE for independent study credit.

Application deadlines:

Spring 2024: Feb 13, 2024, and late deadline Feb 21, 2024, March 31, 2024, April 30, 2024, May 31, 2024

Summer 2024: Feb 13, 2024, and late deadline Feb 21, 2024, March 31, 2024, April 30, 2024, May 31, 2024

Following the application, the interview calls will be sent out to selected candidates. Positions are filled as students apply. As a general rule, therefore, applications should be submitted as early as possible.