Edited by Malini Adkins
In 2012, when Prof. Marientina Gotsis was handed the keys to her very own research lab space, it was already clear that the projects, people, and ideas that would take shape there would ripple far beyond USC Games.
Two years earlier, Gotsis co-founded the Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center (CM&BHC) at USC’s Interactive Media & Games Division (IMGD). Since then, she has been awarded over $2.5 million for sponsored research and led the development of a tabletop game on brain development that has generated more than $1 million in gross revenue.
CM&BHC was born out of the USC Games for Health initiative, launched in 2007, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2008, and first offered as a course in 2009. By 2015, a new MA degree and MFA degree emphasis were approved. In 2018, Christina Lelon, the first MA graduate in Media Arts, Games, and Health completed the program. To date, 16 MA and two MFA students have graduated. USC Games has since also created an MS program, offering even greater disciplinary diversity.
The goal from the start has been to create a space where students can explore interactive entertainment at the intersection of behavioral science, medicine, and public health. The vision is to move beyond traditional game design and create tools that make a difference in communities, organizations, and industries around the world.
The center’s mission is straightforward. It aims to raise public awareness of mental health and behavioral science while giving students the tools to create meaningful change.
By working in an interdisciplinary environment, BFA, MA, MS, and MFA students, along with many students and volunteers of every rank and discipline, gain skills they carry far beyond their time in CM&BHC. While USC Games focuses on game design and development, the health emphasis extends its reach into medicine, rehabilitation, aerospace, neurotechnology, and education.
Every graduate’s path is unique, shaped by when they entered the program and the projects they encountered. Yet in interviews, a shared set of values emerges. Curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to take risks run through every story.
Come in With an Open Mind
Some students arrive expecting a straight path into the games industry. More often, they find themselves heading in unexpected directions.
“USC’s approach really spoke to me,” says Diana Hughes, now Head of Product at Relay Graduate School of Education. “This idea of ‘we have this interactive media program, we have this game design focus, [and] it’s within the School of Cinematic Arts.’ In other places, a lot of times it was in the engineering department. I really wanted something that had more of that creative focus.”
Others discover whole new fields they never considered.
“I really thought that I was going to specialize in either game audio or narrative design,” recalls Kaitlin (KB) Bonfiglio, MFA alumna, award-winning game designer, and patient advocate. “I had no idea that I was going to make a game that was like games for creative health. I had no idea, and it wasn’t until I took [Gotsis’ class] that it solidified everything for me.”
USC Games’ core curriculum is play- and player-centric, giving students a strong foundation in advocating for users and for a gameful experience. “I drew strength and inspiration from our core curriculum, which was heavily architected by Prof. Tracy Fullerton. I felt that the leap from user to player to patient advocacy could be scaffolded,” states Gotsis.
Hughes offers this advice for incoming students. “You can’t come in with, ‘but I have this grand idea, and I’m here to realize my vision.’ Because you’re going to be so hung up on that you’re not taking the time to take in lessons that might shift you in a different direction, or open your brain to something new. You need to be open. I don’t know as much as I think I do, and that’s why I’m here.”
Diverse backgrounds are not just welcome here—they are essential.
“[This is] because complex social problems and innovation require an interdisciplinary approach,” Gotsis says. One example is her longest-standing collaboration with Dr. Maryalice Jordan-Marsh, which led to the development of the collaborative tabletop game Broadening Circles. The game teaches how to enable and sustain patient-centered research.
“Interdisciplinary collaboration creates a unique energy that fuels innovation grounded in the best that each player brings,” Jordan-Marsh affirms. “The bonding requires a shared spirit of fun and willingness to accept what seems outrageous or strange.”
Dr. Jordan-Marsh further explains that the goal of interdisciplinary collaboration is to “build on the experience and knowledge of each contributor to create energy that fuels innovation and solid design.”
The project is also supported by Dr. Haig Yenikomshian’s Southern California Burn Model System, with funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).
“Bringing together different disciplines with varying backgrounds and experiences has helped us develop more meaningful research and media for survivors of burn injury and for caregivers,” Dr. Yenikomshian added.
Moreover, former MA student and now Payload Operations Director at NASA, Morgan Kuligowski, remembers the collaborative energy from a student perspective.
“[The MA program] had a unique group. You go through the courses with the MFA students, and everyone just brings their own ideas to the table.”
Even in a world where graduate programs often emphasize specialization, CM&BHC equips students with adaptable and in-demand skills. Kuligowski and her cohort contributed to Dr. Jeff Newell’s dissertation study during the pandemic, interacting with 122 game players over Zoom. This study and her integrative project focused on virtual reality and aerospace engineering prepared her for a career at NASA.
Garrett Flynn, a software developer at Universal Brain, explains.
“My role was to build [a desktop application] into something very usable for people. So, I tended to talk with pure users or deeply in like the software. [The MA program] gave me the skills to be able to fill a role and not require two or three people to fill that space.”
Bonfiglio puts it more bluntly.
“Right now is not the time to be [putting all of our eggs in one basket.] It’s not going to work. We need to pivot away from [solely games industry jobs] because there are so many interesting projects in labs across the program. There’s Marientina’s lab, the Radical Play Lab, the XR Lab. There’s so much cool [stuff] happening.”
You Find What Works for You and Play the Long Game
Some students leave with exactly the career they imagined. Others take turns they never could have predicted.
During her MFA, Hughes explored e-textiles, creating a plush animal embedded with sensors so it could function like a game controller.
“The interactions you have with a screen can come out into your life,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be this very artificial thing, like a controller and a screen.”
After completing USC’s inaugural games for health class in 2009 during his undergraduate studies at USC Games, Jason Mathias continued on to the MFA program in 2011 with ambitions in games for education and health. He admits the path after graduation was not straightforward, even as his thesis game Covalence won several awards.
“It was hard for me to go and get a job later because I had sort of heavily invested in this space. I didn’t have a lot of work that could easily be turned into a portfolio that would be easy to explain to a big game company, and game design is intrinsically a very difficult job to get into.”
Coming from a family of doctors, Mathias ultimately went to medical school. He carried with him the vision of using games and interactive tools to help patients understand their own health.
“As you go through the program, you’ll find something you’re deeply good at and you should really kind of trust that you are good at that thing and then work to develop it.”
The CM&BHC continues to build on its founding principles. It offers students the freedom to experiment, collaborate, and grow in ways that change how they see the world.
“All the students coming through the center are designers and design researchers who are interested in social impact,” Gotsis says. “The impact manifests via design choices. Whether something is used once or daily, it affects people. We think of policy-making and laws that have to do with government, but policies are any rules, principles, or guidelines used by an organization. Such organization is any structure: a family, a lab, a classroom, a neighborhood, a company.”
Flynn offers one last piece of encouragement for future students.
“If you want to help people and you don’t know what to do, do the program because you’re going to figure out the most effective way to help the people you want to help.”
CM&BHC stands as a model for how education can transcend disciplines, industries, and expectations. For students who are ready to explore the intersection of design and impact, this isn’t just a program—it’s a launchpad.
Learn more about the program and how to apply: cinema.usc.edu/interactive