April 21, 2015

We are pleased to announce that we are seeking candidates for our new Doctoral program in Digital Media, the College’s first Ph.D. program, which will launch in September 2015. The Ph.D. program builds upon the department of Digital Media’s master’s program and our undergraduate programs in Game Art & Production, Animation & Visual Effects and Interactive Digital Media. It focuses on translational research in areas such as artificial intelligence, serious gaming, augmented reality, and interactivity. 

The Ph.D. in Digital Media curriculum’s flexible structure affords the opportunity for customized interdisciplinary concentrations that can span across multiple Drexel Colleges. The program requires 90 credits of coursework with a bachelor's degree, or 45 credits of coursework with a master's degree. Doctoral students will work closely with the Digital Media department’s twelve full-time faculty in our award-winning URBN Center facilities, with access to state-of-the art computer labs and software, a motion capture system and motion platform system.

Among the Digital Media’s faculty are Dr. Jichen Zhu, whose research focuses on artificial intelligence; Drs. Stefan Rank and Michael Wagner, serious gamers; Dr. Frank Lee, who oversees Drexel’s Entrepreneurial Game Studio; Dr. Paul Diefenbach, the co-founder of Drexel’s Gaming programs with Frank Lee; animators John Berton and Ted Artz; and Dr. Glen Muschio, who works on digital preservation of cultural artifacts. During the last two years, Digital Media graduate students have published and presented academic papers and posters in conferences including SIGGRAPH; CHI; the Game Developers Conference (GDC); the Games, Learning and Society Conference (GLS); the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG); the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS); the International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA); and the International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI).

For further information on the program, please contact Dr. Michael Wagner at michael.g.wagner@drexel.edu.