Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

Dr. Frank J. Lee is Professor of Digital Media in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University with appointments in Psychology, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering. Lee received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology in 2000 from Carnegie Mellon University, and his B.A. in Cognitive Science, with highest honors, in 1994 from UC Berkeley. Lee co-founded Drexel's Game Design Program in 2008, currently ranked as one of the Top 10 Best Game Design Programs in U.S. He is also the founding director of the Entrepreneurial Game Studio at Drexel University.

His past projects have won national and international awards and recognitions and have received extensive national and international media coverage. His 2014 project, Skyscraper Tetris, had mentions in over 1500 articles and a Guinness World Record as the Largest Architectural Videogame Display. He was selected as one of the 50 most admirable gaming people by Polygon in 2014, Hacker of the Year at the 3rd Annual Philadelphia Geek Awards in 2013, and The Smartest People in Philadelphia by Philadelphia Magazine in 2012.

 

Education

2000 PhD, Cognitive Psychology. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
1994 BA, Cognitive Science (Highest Honors). U.C. Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

Appointments

2023-Pr. President Fellow, Office of the President, Drexel University.
2017-Pr. Professor, Digital Media, Drexel University.
2013-Pr. Director, Entrepreneurial Game Studio, Drexel University.
2018-19 Visiting Research Associate (on sabbatical), Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
2018-19 Visiting Research Associate (on sabbatical), Education Testing Service.
2013-17 Associate Professor, Digital Media, Drexel University.
2009-13 Teaching Professor, Computer Science, Drexel University.
2003-09 Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Drexel University.
2001-03 Assistant Professor, Cognitive Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
2000-01 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University.

Journal Articles

1.             Çakir N.A, Çakir, M.P., Lee, F.J. (2021). We game on skyscrapers: the effects of an equity-informed game design workshop on students’ computational thinking skills and perceptions of computer science. Educational Technology Research and Development. 69, 2683–2703. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10031-6.
2.             Kable, J.W., Caulfield, M.K., Falcone, M., McConnell, M., Bernardo, L., Pathasarathi, T., Cooper, N., Ashare, R.L., Audrain-McGovern, J., Hornik, R., Diefenbach, P., Lee, F.J., Lerman, C. (2017). No Effect of Commercial Cognitive Training on Brain Activity, Choice Behavior, or Cognitive Performance. Journal of Neuroscience, 37 (31) 7390-7402. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2832-16.2017.
   •             07/17. More Bad News For Brain-Training Games. NPR
   •             07/17. Brain-training games don't work, a study suggests. Chicago Tribune
3.             Çakir N.A., Gass, A.B., Foster, A., Lee, F.J. (2017). Development of a Game-design Workshop to Promote Young Girls' Interest towards Computing through Identity Exploration. Computers & Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.02.002.
4.             Çakir, M.P., Çakir, N.A., Ayez, H., Lee, F.J. (accepted). Behavioral and Neural Effects of Game-based Learning on Improving Computational Fluency with Numbers: An Optical Brain Imaging Study. Zeitschrift für Psychologie. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000267.
5.             Lee, F.J., Kratz, L.A., and Morgan, W.B. (2006). Explorations in Gameplay: Bimanual Input. The Journal of Game Development, 2(1), 47-62.
6.             Kushleyeva, Y., Salvucci, D.D., & Lee, F.J. (2005). Deciding when to switch tasks in time-critical multitasking. Cognitive Systems Research, 6. 41-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2004.09.005.
7.             Taatgen, N.A. and Lee, F.J. (2003). Production Compilation: A Simple Mechanism to Model of Complex Skill Acquisition. Human Factors, 45, 61-76. https://doi.org/10.1518/hfes.45.1.61.27224.
8.             Lebiere, C., and Lee, F.J. (2002). Intention superiority effect: A context-switching account. Cognitive Systems Research, 3, 57-65. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1389-0417(01)00044-4.
9.             Lee, F.J. and Anderson, J.R. (2001). Does learning a complex task have to be complex? A study in learning decomposition. Cognitive Psychology, 42, 267-316. https://doi.org/10.1006/cogp.2000.0747.

 

Conference Articles

1.             Tian, V., Truesdell, E.J.K, Lee, F.J. (in preparation). “Under Watch: Designing a Pervasive Game for Discomfort and Critical Reflection” 29th International Symposium on Electronics Art.
2.             Duvall, M., Lee, F.J., Smith, B.K. (2019). Skyscraper Games: Professional Development for Using Custom Technology Tools. Paper to be presented at 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. April 5-9. Toronto, Canada.
3.             Duvall, M., Lee, F.J., Smith, B.K. (2018). Skyscraper Games: Reaching underrepresented populations in STEM through game design and programming. Poster presented at International Conference on Urban Education. November 8-10. Nassau, Bahamas.
4.             Duvall, M., Lee, F.J., Smith, B.K. (2018). Creating Effective Professional Development for Middle School. Poster presented at International Conference of the Learning Sciences. June 23-30. London, UK.
5.             Duvall, M., Lee, F.J., Smith, B.K. (2018). Professional development for middle school teachers to promote computational thinking for populations underrepresented in STEM fields. Poster presented at Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education. March 26-30. Washington, DC.
6.             Collins, E., Cox, A., Lee, F.J. (accepted). Say Cheese! Games for Successful Business Networking. 2016 ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. Austin, Texas.
7.             Çakir M.P., Çakir N.A., Ayez, H., Lee, F.J. (accepted). Neural Correlates of Computational Fluency Training with a Mobile Game: An Optical Brain Imaging Study. The 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Washington, DC.
8.             Çakir N.A., Gass, A.B., Foster, A., Lee, F.J. (accepted). Designing Her Way into Computer Science: Empowering Young Girls Through Identity Exploration. In the annual European Conference on Educational Research (ECER 2016), Dublin, Ireland.
9.             Çakir M.P., Çakir N.A., Ayez, H., Lee, F.J. (2015). An Optical Brain Imaging Study on the Improvements in Mathematical Fluency from Game-based Learning. In ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. London, United Kingdom.
10.           Cakir N.A., Cakir, M.P., and Lee, F.J. (2015). Using Optical Brain Imaging to Investigate Functional Changes During Game-Based Learning. Poster presented at 16th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction (EARLI). Limassol, Cyprus.
11.           Goldman, T., Lee, F.J., Zhu, J. (2014). Using Video Games to Facilitate Understanding of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Feasibility Study. ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. Toronto, Canada.
12.           Hurowitz, F., Brennan, M., Boucher, E., Lally, D., Lee, F.J. (2009) Museum Hunt: a Computerized Eye-Tracking Game. Poster presented at the 8Th Annual International Meeting for Autism Research. Chicago, IL.
13.           Brown, Q., Salvucci, D., Lee, F.J., & Aleven, V. (2009) Who Helps When The Tutor Is Asleep? Proceedings of the Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, Brighton, United Kingdom.
14.           Brown, Q., Lee, F.J., & Alejandre, S. (2009). Emphasizing Soft Skills and Team Development in an Educational Game Digital Game Design Course. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games, Miami, FL.
15.           Brown, Q., Lee, F.J., Salvucci, D., and Aleven, V. (2008). Developing A Mobile Intelligent Tutoring System to Bridge The Digital Divide. IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, Herrsching am Ammersee, Germany.
16.           Brown, Q., Lee, F. J., Salvucci, D. D., & Aleven, V. (2008). Interface challenges for mobile tutoring systems. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Montreal, Canada.
17.           Brown, Q., Lee, F. J., Salvucci, D. D., & Aleven, V. (2008). The design of a mobile intelligent tutoring system. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Montreal, Canada.
18.           Kratz, L.A., Lee, F.J., Smith, M.A., (2007) Wiizards: 3D Gesture Recognition for Game Play Input. Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Future Play. Toronto, Canada.
19.           Cochran, R. E., Lee, F. J., and Chown, E. (2006). Modeling emotion: Arousal’s impact on memory. Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Vancouver, BC, Canada.
20.           Lee, F.J. & Kushleyeva, Y. (2005). Innovations In Undergraduate Computer Science Education Through Educational Game Design CCSCNE 2005: Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges — Northeastern Region.
21.           Salvucci, D.D., Kushleyeva, Y., & Lee, F.J. (2004). Toward an ACT-R general executive for human multitasking. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling.
22.           Kushleyeva, Y., Salvucci, D.D., & Lee, F.J. (2004). Deciding when to switch tasks in time-critical multitasking. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling. [Allen Newell Award for Best Student Paper].
23.           Salvucci, D.D. Chavez, A. and Lee, F.J. (2004). Toward an ACT-R General Executive for Human Multitasking. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
24.           Smith, V. and Lee, F.J. (2003). Cognitive Workload and Multitasking. Proceedings of the Joint International Conference on Cognitive Science.
25.           Salvucci, D.D. and Lee, F.J. (2003). Simple cognitive modeling in a complex cognitive architecture. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: The Proceedings of ACM SIGCHI 2003. ACM Press.
26.           Lee, F.J. and Taatgen, N.A. (2002). Multitasking as skill acquisition. Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
27.           Lebiere, C., and Lee, F.J. (2001). Intention superiority effect: A context-sensitivity account. In E.M. Altmann, A. Cleermans, C.D. Schunn, & W.D. Gray (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
28.           Lee, F.J. and Anderson, J.R. (2000). Modeling eye-movements of skilled performance in a dynamic task. In N.A. Taatgen and J. Aasman (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Cognitive Modelling. Veenendaal, The Netherlands: Universal Press.
29.           Lee, F.J., and Anderson, J.R. (1999). Does learning of a complex task have to be complex? Bulletin of the Psychonomics Society.
30.           Lee, F.J. and Anderson, J.R. (1997). Learning to act: Acquisition and optimization of procedural skill. Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
31.           Lee, F.J., Anderson, J.R., and Matessa, M.P. (1995). Components of dynamic skill acquisition. Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Grants

2023      Developing Modules to Address Microaggressions and Discriminatory Behaviors. Leff, S. and Duncan, A.F., Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health. Project # 1R25GM149980-01. $95,218. (Lee, consultant)

2020-01      SIM-PHL: An Interactive Neighborhood Simulator in Philadelphia. Lee (PI). Knight Foundation. $164K.

2020-23      Story Seek: A Location-Based Mobile Game for Storytelling in Philadelphia. Lee (PI). William Penn Foundation. $450,000.

2019-20      Civic Engagement through Interactive Projection. Lee (PI). Knight Foundation. $139,770.

2019      Skyscraper Games for Kids. Lee (PI). Brandywine Realty Trust $25,000. Gift.

2018-19      Teacher Tension. Lee (PI). Educational Testing Service. $55,000.

2017-18      Age of Alchemy: The Goldsmith’s Daughter - A Game Prototype. McLeary, Lee (Co-PI), Sharpe. National Endowment for the Humanities. $100,000.

2017      Alchemy Explored Through a Game. Lee (PI). Chemical Heritage Foundation. $10,000.

2017-18      Skyscraper Games: Regional STEAM Contest for Kids. Lee (PI), Smith. Intel. $160,000.

2016-18      Hacktion: Learning Cybersecurity Through Play. Lee (PI). NSF EAGER. $150K.

2016-17      Minecraft MOD for Children with Hemophilia. Lee (PI), and Ontanon. Pfizer Inc. $157K.

2016-18      Drexel Areas of Research Excellence (DARE): Gaming, Simulation & Society. Rank, Ayaz, Daly, Diefenbach, Forman, Foster, Lee (Co-PI), O’Neil, Otañón, Shewokis, Sims, Smith, and Zhu. Drexel University. $250K. 2016-2017.

2016-18      Drexel Market-Driven Academic Program Ventures (MPV): TranSCEND: Transdisciplinary Science, Computing, Engineering, and Design. Kim, Dion, Egan, Fontecchio, Lee (Co-PI), Smith. Drexel University. $150K. 2016-2018.

2016-17      War of the Worlds: Philadelphia. Lee (PI), Mackey, Zhu, and Gass. William Penn Foundation. $356,000.

2015-16      Game Design Workshops for Middle and High School Girls. Lee (PI). Intel. $100,000.

2015-16      The Paley Project. Gass and Lee (Co-PI). Temple Libraries. $3,000.

2014-16      Growing Pennsylvania’s Interactive Media Industry. Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. PA Department of Community and Economic Development. $750K [$200K subcontract to Lee (PI)].

2014-15      Game-Centric TechShopz in a Box with TechGirlz. Lee (PI). Entertainment Software Association Foundation. $50K.

2014-15      Urban Game Project. Lee (PI). Brandywine Realty Trust. $50K.

2014-15      International Experience for Faculty. Lee (PI). Office of International Programs, Drexel University. 1.4K.

2014-15      Research Co-Op Grant. Lee (PI). Office of the Provost, Drexel University. $7.5K.

2014-15      Microsoft Azure Education Grant. Lee (PI). Microsoft Inc. $20K (in-kind).

2013-14      Mindfun. Daly, Connell, Lee (Co-PI), Regli. Shire Pharmaceutical Development Inc. $250K.

2013-14      Pong on the Cira Centre. Lee (PI). Brandywine Realty Trust Inc. $5K (gift).

2012-14      Retraining Neurocognitive Mechanism. University of Pennsylvania. $50K, Diefenback and Lee (Co-PI).

2012-13      Microsoft Imagine Cup US Competition. Lee (PI). Microsoft Inc. 10k (gift).

2010-11      Social Gaming for Children with Autism. Hurowitz and Lee (Co-PI). Human Enhancement Cognition Program, Drexel University. $5K.

2004-08      ITR: Rapid Evaluation of User Interfaces in Multitasking Environments. Salvucci and Lee (Co-PI). National Science Foundation, $1M.

2004-05      TRAILS Course Development Award: A Course on Educational Game Design. Lee (PI). SRI International. $44K.

2002-03      A Computational Theory of Psychological Time within a Cognitive Architecture Framework. Lee (PI). Office of Naval Research. $79K.

2002-07      Assessing, Understanding and Improving the Transfer of Learning in Undergraduate Math, Science and Engineering. Lister, Connor, Siegmann, Lee (Co-PI), Cummings. National Science Foundation. $350K.

2001-03      The Mental Metalogic Research and Development Program: A New, Comprehensive Approach to Human and Machine Reasoning. Bringsjord, Yang, Lee (Co-PI), Heuveln. Exploratory Research Seed Project, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. $50K.

2002-03      Modeling Dynamic Multitasking in a Cognitive Architecture. Salvucci and Lee (Co-PI). Nissan Technical Center North America. $65K.