Jesse Himmelstein

I have a background in research, engineering, and teaching. Until mid-2010, I was an R&D engineer at Kineo CAM, a start-up company specialized in motion planning. I did a joint PhD at Kineo and with Jean-Paul Laumond at the Gepetto group at the LAAS-CNRS. My work addressed problems surrounding motion planning for industrial models, including swept volumes, collision detection, and planning in collision. From 2010-2012, I was a project lead at DIGINEXT, where I coordinated European and developed research projects on virtual reality, such as CHESS, INDIGO, and V-City. From 2012-2017, I founded and directed the CRI GameLab in Paris, creating open source games and tools, such as RedWire and RedMetrics. I lead EU research projects (IncLudo, Citizen Cyberlab) and organized events for the Gamelier club that I co-founded. In 2018, I co-founded Play Curious, as a way to create games to explore and understand the world around us. I have taught game design at ETPA in Toulouse and the University de Montpellier, and computer science at ENSEEIHT in Toulouse and IMERIR in Perpignan. I integrate a game- and project-based approach as much as possible in order to keep students active and open to the material.