Robin Hunicke is the Co-Founder & CEO of the independent game studio Funomena, which creates experimental games for Console, PC, VR & AR platforms in the heart of downtown San Francisco. A game designer and producer by training, she has a background in Computer Science, Art and applied Game Studies. She has been designing, making and teaching about games for over 12 years (Journey, Boom Blox, MySims, TheSims2).
Robin is an outspoken evangelist for diversity, and has dedicated the second half of her career to broadening the participation of women and under-represented minorities within the Arts, Entertainment & Technology communities. To that end, she joined UCSC’s Arts Division as Associate Professor as Director of the Art, Games & Playable Media BA in 2014. In 2015 she joined the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program faculty, and founded the Ludo Lab Center for Games, Play & SocialPractice. Along with her colleagues throughout the UC system, Robin works to provide students with opportunities to explore how they can impact society via creative, technological, social & entrepreneurial practices.
In addition to her commercial and educational work, Robin curates the annual Experimental Gameplay Workshop, sits on the PlaySFMOMA, FDG & VRDC advisory boards, and volunteers in support of initiatives such as: the Lexus Design Award, Girls Make Games, Anita Borg Foundation, Google Made with Code, as well as the Higher Education Video Game Alliance and the CS For All initiative.