01
Tournament and field experiments
I'm interested in experiments conducted within tournaments and other real competitive settings, where players already care about participating and performing well.
Academic
Research, teaching, and academic life.
I'm a PhD student at NC State University, where I work with the Visual Experience Lab and Dr. Ben Watson. My research uses games as environments for studying human behavior, interaction, motivation, and performance.
Research
Games, players, and experiments in the contexts that make play meaningful.
I study people through games, with a particular interest in competitive play, player interaction, and field experiments in settings where players already have a reason to care about what they're doing.
Current themes
Questions I'm pursuing through play.
02
Player interaction and performance
Competitive games create environments where people respond to one another, adapt strategies, make decisions under pressure, and care about outcomes. I'm interested in how those interactions shape what players do and how they perform.
03
Experimentation through play
Games are useful to me not only as things to study, but as environments for asking questions about behavior, motivation, interaction, and performance. Play gives those questions a context that people already understand and often genuinely care about.
Why tournaments?
Why study players in tournaments?
Laboratory studies are useful, but they can remove some of what makes competitive play meaningful. A participant may be there because a study asked them to be there, because they are being compensated, or because they have been given a task they would never otherwise choose to do.
In a tournament, players already want to participate. They care about the game, they have reasons to perform well, and the competition means something to them.
I'm interested in what researchers can learn when experiments are designed around that context instead of replacing it.
Academic record
Publications
Papers, posters, journal articles, preprints, and thesis work from my research.
Towards Field Experiments in Esports Competition
I3D Companion '26: Companion Proceedings of the Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games
pp. 1–2 · Article 12
Towards Field Experiments in Esports Competition
Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference Technical Workshops
Article 12 · 5 pages
What Do Competitive Players Do With Their Settings? A Multi-Game Esports Configuration Survey
I3D Companion '26: Companion Proceedings of the Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games
pp. 1–3 · Article 18
What Do Competitive Players Do With Their Settings? A Multi-Game Esports Configuration Survey
Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference Technical Workshops
Article 16 · 6 pages
Toward Understanding Display Size for FPS Esports Aiming
Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games
pp. 1–7
Studying Esports Competition: Piloting Methodology for User Studies During Tournaments
ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Talks
pp. 1–2
Display Size and Targeting Performance: Small Hurts, Large May Help
SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 Conference Papers
pp. 1–8
Esports and expertise: what competitive gaming can teach us about mastery
Interactions, 29(6)
pp. 54–59
The Esports Frontier: Rendering for Competitive Games
arXiv
Better Frame Rates or Better Visuals? An Early Report of Esports Player Practice in Dota 2
Extended Abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
pp. 174–178
Effects of Spatial and Temporal Display in Esports on Gaming Performance
North Carolina State University
Academic activities
Conferences, presentations, reviewing, and service.
A chronological record of conference participation, presentations, reviewing, organizing, and other academic involvement.
2026
- Publicity ChairI3D 2026
- SpeakerPRICE Workshop at SIGGRAPH 2026
- AuthorERNC26
- ReviewerSIGGRAPH 2026 General Submissions
- ReviewerSIGGRAPH 2026 Posters Program
2025
- PresenterFDG 2025
- ReviewerSIGGRAPH 2025 General Submissions
2024
- PresenterSIGGRAPH 2024
- ReviewerSIGGRAPH 2024 General Submissions
2023
- Student VolunteerSIGGRAPH 2023
- Conducted tournamentGames Workshop at SIGGRAPH 2023
2022
- AuthorSIGGRAPH Asia 2022
2021
- PresenterCHI PLAY 2021
Teaching
Courses I've taught and supported.
All current records are from NC State University.
User Experience
Instructor.
C and Software Tools
Instructor for one offering.
Introduction to Computer Graphics
Teaching assistant across multiple offerings.
Introduction to Computer Graphics
Teaching assistant across multiple offerings.
Building Game AI
Teaching assistant across multiple offerings.
Leadership & service
Organizations I've helped lead and support.
2024–2026
NC State Graduate Student Association
Treasurer
Served as treasurer of NC State's university-wide graduate student association.
NC State Graduate Student Association 2019–present
Maitri IGSA
Volunteer, Vice President of Internal Affairs, President, and Student Advisor
Contributed in a succession of volunteer and leadership roles and now serves as a student advisor.
InstagramNC State Get Involved
Maitri IGSA