Editorial Board
Editor-in-Chief
Nabil Zary, MD, PhD
Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Science, Dubai, UAE
Bio
Dr. Nabil Zary is director of the Institute for Excellence in Health Professions Education (ieHPE) at Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine in Health Sciences (MBRU) in Dubai, UAE. He has a background in medicine and technology and received a bachelor's in medicine and doctoral degree in medical sciences at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He began his career in 2000 as Technical Director, Wallenberg Global Learning Network in Stanford University, and has since assumed various roles ranging from Assistant to Associate Professorships in Medical Education in Sweden, Singapore and the US. Dr. Zary’s recent academic appointment was in Singapore, where he served as the Founding Technical Director of gAmes for HeaLth InnoVations CentrE (ALIVE) and the Acting Director of the Medical Education Research and Scholarship Unit.
Along his +20 years-long professional journey, he has gained experience at strategic and tactical levels of impactful transformations that have been translated into actionable understanding, expertise, and leadership in complex contexts.
Research Focus
Dr. Zary is active in investigating the potential of emerging technologies in the context of digital health and digital health education, with a special interest for serious games, extended realities, artificial intelligence, technology standards and ubiquitous learning approaches for patients and healthcare workforce.
Editorial Board Members/Section Editors
Join the Editorial Board
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Mariano Alcañiz, PhD
Laboratory Of Immersive Neurotechnologies (LabLENI)
Human Centered Technologies Institute. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain
Bio
Prof. Mariano Alcañiz is the founding director of the Immersive Neurotechnologies Laboratory (LabLENI) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and professor of biomedical engineering at the UPV. He has published more than 350 academic articles in interdisciplinary journals such as Science, Scientific Reports, and Plos One, as well as domain-specific journals in communication, computing, education, medicine, management, and psychology. National and European agencies have continuously funded his work for 30 years. According to the most recent bibliographic review, Professor Alcañiz is among the ten authors with the highest number of publications worldwide on virtual reality. He received the Cybertherapy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 from the US Interactive Media Institute for outstanding scientists who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in advanced technologies and health. He has been a Vice-President of the European Association for Extended Reality (EURO-XR) since 2015.
Research Focus
Prof. Alcañiz's general research interests hover around a better understanding and enhancement of human cognition, combining insights and methods from computer science, psychology, and neuroscience. His work is centered on using empirical, behavioral science methodologies to explore people as they interact in these digital worlds. Still, he researches to develop new ways to produce Extended Reality (XR) simulations. Towards this end, he has been involved in clinical psychology, neurodevelopmental disorders, consumer neuroscience, organizational neuroscience, education, and training projects.
Julian Alvarez, PhD
Lille 1 University, France
Play Research Lab, Ludoscience, France
Lutin UserLab, France
Bio
Julian Alvarez was awarded his PhD in IT and Communication Science in 2007 at the University of Toulouse 2. Since 2012, he has been a part-time university professor, working in the CIREL Laboratory of the Educational Science Department at the University of Lille 1. He specializes in TICe (IT and communication technologies for education), particularly in serious games. His research works focuses on the typology of serious games, their development, and distribution in the areas of training, health care, and marketing. Concurrently, he also teaches classes in project management and serious games design and development at Supinfogame Rubika in Valenciennes and the University of Lille 1 and Toulouse 3. He has contributed to the design and development of over 150 advergames (advertisement games), edugames (edutainment games) and casual games (small video games). His projects were produced for Editions Milan, Dupuis, TF1, La Cité de l’espace, the CNeS, the CNRS, the eNaC, the Académie de Toulouse, and Orange Labs.
Research Focus
Julian Alvarez is interested in the use of play in all areas, especially in education, health, and information & communication. His specialty is focused on the evaluation of serious games / serious gaming devices and their uses. The question of the adoption of games by ecosystems (eg, hospitals, schools, and companies) and accompaniments is central. Julian’s research also focuses on the history and taxonomy of video games and electronic games.
Craig Anderson, PhD
Iowa State University, USA
Bio
Craig Anderson obtained his PhD at Stanford University in 1980 and has over 160 publications in the areas of social, personality, and cognitive psychology. His primary interest in recent years has been on the effects of violent and nonviolent media on children and adolescents. His 2007 book Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents (Oxford University Press) reported the first major longitudinal study in this domain. His 2010 meta-analysis of this domain is now the standard reference. His team was also the first to report positive effects of playing prosocial games, and is also interested in positive uses of games for social, educational, health, and developmental purposes.
Max Valentin Birk, PhD
Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Bio
Max Birk is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology. He received his graduate degree in Psychology from the University of Trier (Germany) in 2012 and completed his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada) in 2018. Max has collaborated with game designers in North America, Europe, and China, and also has experience working with independent developers.
Research Focus
Max Birk draws from psychology, interaction design, data science, and game design to investigate the effects of game-based design strategies on mental processes and design-induced behavior change. His research contributes to games user research, digital health, and motivational interface design.
Celia Boyer, MSc
Health On the Net Foundation, Switzerland
Bio
Celia Boyer is the Executive Director of the Health On the Net Foundation (HON), a non-profit organization that promotes and guides the deployment of useful and trustworthy online health information and its appropriate and efficient use. From her education and her years of experience in the field, Celia is widely recognized as an expert in the quality assessment of medical information on the Internet. She has taken part in multiple projects at both European and international levels. Her latest achievement is acting as a work package leader in the European Commission funded projectKHRESMOI, started in 2010, which aims to develop a multi-lingual, multi-modal search and access system for biomedical information and documents. In addition, she is highly involved in other EU research activities and explore new domains for delivering online health information such as health serious games. She has participated in Segamed in 2012, specialized in Health Serious Gaming.
Research Focus
Celia Boyer’s research focus is on the impact of serious gaming in information delivery for various audiences, as well as the role of the debriefings after using health serious games. Celia is also interested in the transparency and the quality of serious games.
Quote
"JSG: advances and benefits of delivering health information via serious gaming"
Brian Cugelman, PhD
AlterSpark Corp., Canada
University of Wolverhampton, England
Bio
Since 1997, Brian Cugelman has built his career on social mobilization, digital campaigning, and program evaluation, with his academic research focused on the science of Internet behavior change and persuasion. He obtained his PhD in Online Social Marketing with a world leading Internet research team.
Research Focus
Brian’s research focus is on the ingredients, principles, or mechanics used by digital technology to elicit changes in user knowledge, attitudes or behavior.
Quote
"Whether publishing fascinating discoveries or triggering some the field's most important debates, JMIR has contributed so much to the science of digital health."
Ben Gerber, MD, MPH
UMass Chan Medical School, USA
Bio
Dr. Gerber is Professor and Division Chief of the Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science at UMass Chan Medical School. He is an internist, health services researcher, and software developer. He has developed various educational, entertaining, and interactive apps and online resources to support chronic disease self-management, and evaluated several of them through randomized controlled trials.
Research Focus
Ben Gerber’s research focus is on behavior change and health education in the context of chronic disease self-management.
Quote
"JMIR is an outstanding journal in the field — a top journal in eHealth."
Guido Giunti, MD, PhD
University of Oulu, Finland
Bio
Dr. Guido Giunti is a physician (MD) specializing in digital health solutions (PhD) with experience working on Healthcare Innovations. He is the founder of the TEDx event of the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, which under his guidance grew to be an event with over 1500 attendees and changed the way that the university approaches interdisciplinary work. Dr. Giunti has created and led many effective science communication workshops and courses in different countries, and has his own column in specialized eHealth magazines. His scientific findings have been reported in TV, radio and newspapers around the world. Dr. Giunti is now in academia at the University of Oulu, Finland, and he is involved with, and has worked in, digital health SMEs and both private and public hospitals.
Research Focus
Guido Giunti is currently researching ways to improve user engagement and patient empowerment through innovative technologies like mHealth, gamification, and conversational agents.
Quote
"Transdisciplinary goals require transdisciplinary efforts, it is up to all of us to improve the health and quality of life of the people."
Maurits Graafland, PhD student and surgical resident
Flevo Ziekenhuis, Netherlands
Bio
Maurits Graafland is a surgical resident, currently finishing his thesis “Serious Gaming in Surgical Education”. His research interests include simulation, serious gaming, surgical skills assessment and curriculum development.
Research Focus
Maurits Graafland’s research interests include simulation, serious gaming, surgical skills assessment, and curriculum development.
Daria Kuss, PhD
Nottingham Trent University, England
Bio
Daria Kuss is a Chartered Psychologist, Chartered Scientist, and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University, and Programme Leader of the new MSc Cyberpsychology. She has an international reputation as Internet addiction expert, and is an award-winning author, with her new books Internet addiction – Evidence-based practice in psychotherapy (Hogrefe) and The Oxford Handbook of Cyberpsychology (OUP), both of which have only just been published in 2019. Her research has been covered in international news outlets, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the BBC.
Research Focus
Daria Kuss’s research focuses on potentially pathological online behaviors and their treatment in various populations (adolescents, students, clinical populations, and mental health care professionals) across countries (Europe, US, and Canada). Her research methods are both qualitative and quantitative.
Emanuele Lettieri, PhD
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Bio
Emanuele Lettieri is researcher at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering at Politecnico di Milano and lecturer of Economics and Business Administration at Politecnico di Milano and lecturer in cost accounting, performance management, business performance reengineering and health technology assessment Courses at MIP - Politecnico di Milano. He is an expert on the assessment of technology-enabled innovations of current paradigms of care delivery within the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) discipline.
Research Focus
Emanuele Lettieri's research interests are about organizing healthcare for sustainable effectiveness by radically rethinking its current paradigms. In particular, he is interested to promote significant changes through the implementation of cost-effective, technology-enabled innovations, such as serious games.
Quote
"Be Serious: Game your Health! JSG debates how."
Ricky Leung, PhD
University of Albany, USA
Bio
Ricky Leung is an assistant professor in health management at SUNY-Albany. He is experienced in health research, including social media applications, games, informatics, and emerging technology.
Research Focus
Ricky Leung's research focuses on social network analysis, cross cultural / transnational games, games for health-related purposes, games and public health, and games for education.
Quote
"Given its ambitious scope and high quality papers, JSG will become the leading journal in the field of serious games."
Anna McDaniel, RN, PhD
University of Florida, USA
Bio
Anna McDaniel is best known for her research in the subspecialty of consumer health informatics, focusing that work on the significant societal problem of tobacco control. Her award winning video game, Escape from Nicotinia, blended deep knowledge of the behavioral motivational strategies common to adolescents with smoking prevention concepts. It addressed the health promotion needs of teenage girls and was the prototype for the NCI Small Business Innovation Research grants (Phase I and II) to develop and test an anti-smoking video game.
Research Focus
Anna McDaniel's research focus is on nicotine addiction/tobacco control.
Allan McDougall, MA, PhD
Research Associate, Research Unit of the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, Canada
Bio
Dr. McDouglall is a qualitative researcher specializing in medical education and health care teamwork. He has taught and written on qualitative research methods, especially qualitative data analysis software.
Research Focus
Allan McDougall is currently developing a research program on gamification in post-graduate medical education. He is particularly interested in medical education, professionalism, and qualitative methods.
Marlies Schijven, MD, PhD, MHSC
Academic Medical Center of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Bio
Marlies Schijven is a surgeon with extensive experience in designing and validating serious games and simulations. She has supervised several PhD's on the issue, and is immediate past-president of the Dutch Society for Simulation in Healthcare, program committee member of Games for Health Europe and Founder of the WATCH Society for use of Wearable Technology in Healthcare.
Research Focus
Marlies Schijven’s research focuses on wearable technology, validation trajectories, situational awareness, and games aiming at training physicians/professionals in health care.
Quote
"Play a serious game a day — might keep the doctor away."
particularly interested in medical education, professionalism, and qualitative methods.
Tanjir Rashid Soron, MD, MPH
Founder NiHealth, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Bio
Dr. Soron is the founder and managing director of NiHealth and Telepsychiatry Research and Innovation Network in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He completed his MD in Psychiatry after completing an MBBS and MPH. Afterward he completed an MSc in Global eHealth from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He started his career as Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and subsequently established the Telepsychiatry Research and Innovation Network to increase access to mental health using technology and conducting research to reduce the wide mental health treatment gap in Bangladesh and other Low and Middle-Income Countries. He brings the concept of blending nature into digital health solutions in designing his next venture Naturalistic Intelligent Health (NiHealth). Along his professional journey, he has gained experience in strategic and policy development and developing and deploying low-cost innovative digital mental health solutions.
Research Focus
Dr. Soron is active in investigating the potential areas of user-centered, cost-effective technological solutions for mental health and their integration among vulnerable communities, specifically people with autism spectrum disorder and slum dwellers in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)
ersity of Illinois at Chicago (USA)
Join the Editorial Board
We are currently looking to expand our Editorial Board. To apply to be an Editorial Board member/Associate Editor specifically for JMIR Serious Games, please apply using the form linked in this article. You should hold a PhD or similar higher degree and have a publication track record including, ideally, some academic editing experience.