About

Janell Baxter is the Associate Chair of the Interactive Arts and Media Department (IAM), School of Media Arts at Columbia College Chicago. She teaches simulation and serious game design, programming, teamwork, interactive media development, and capstone courses including Indie Game Studio and IAM Team. Janell was part of the team that created the Game Design major in IAM, and has been instrumental in curriculum development across the majors in the department; she has served as coordinators of the Game Development concentration, Game Art concentration, and Web Development minor, as well as part of the team that recently redesigned the Interactive Arts and Media BA.

Her professional work includes engineering bots and building simulations and software. She’s been involved in a range of development projects, from commercial work to simulations and serious game-like experiences funded by grants. Her primary interest in building interactive work is to create experiences that are meaningful and relevant to those who use them, and that embody traits on the higher end of the interactive spectrum: participant-centered, responsive, adaptive, dynamic, and immersive.

She holds a MS in Computer Science from the University of Chicago, and a BFA from University of Illinois at Chicago, and her work often combines art and technology in an innovative manner.

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