Owen Gottlieb Headshot

Owen Gottlieb

Associate Professor

School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
oagigm@rit.edu
585-475-5364
Office Location
GOL-2571

Owen Gottlieb

Associate Professor

School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Education

AB, Dartmouth College; MA, University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts; MAHL, Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion; Ph.D., Education and Jewish Studies (Dissertation in Digital Media and Games for Learning), New York University

Bio

 Dr. Gottlieb is Associate Professor of Interactive Games and Media and the Founder and Lead Research Faculty of the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy (RCP) at the RIT MAGIC Center and MAGIC Spell Studios. His interdisciplinary research and scholarship traverses game design and development, games for learning and heritage, interactive media for healing and wellness, interactive narrative, and the history of instructional design media. 

The Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at MAGIC
Downloadable Scholarship by Dr. Gottlieb from RIT Scholarworks
Faculty Scholarship for Dr. Gottlieb
“Featured article: You Can’t Wrap Herring in an iPad”

At the IMLearning Lab and RCP, Gottlieb leads a team of RIT students and faculty as well as faculty at a number of other universities and organizations. The team's award-winning learning games, have been showcased at venues including the Smithsonian American Museum of Art  (SAAM) Arcade; Indiecade; The Boston Festival of Independent Games; Now Play This Festival, London; Meaningful Play; Serious Play; and National Endowment for the Humanities 50th Anniversary.

See the Lost & Found learning game series.

Drawing from research and design work in his IMLearning lab at RIT and the University of Washington, Gottlieb and his co-founders spun out a startup from the two universities. HypnoScientific, Inc. is a digital therapeutics company dedicated to bringing digital clinical therapeutic hypnosis to those in pain -- addressing pain without the use of pharmaceuticals. 

Gottlieb’s research, design, and therapeutic work have been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), The National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Covenant Foundation.

oagigm@rit.edu
585-475-5364
Personal Links
Personal Website
Google Scholar
Areas of Expertise
Game Design and Development
Interactive Media
Games for Learning and Social Impact
Games, Religion & Culture
Interactive Media and Wellness
Instructional Design
Producing and Project Management
Interactive Narrative
Design-Based Research
Mobile Augmented Reality Games
Games and History Education

Select Scholarship

Invited Paper
Gottlieb, Owen, Matthew Farber, and Paul Darvasi. "Playing to Grow. Roundtable Interview on Games, Education, and Character." gamevironments. (2023). Web.
Invited Keynote/Presentation
Gottlieb, Owen. "An Adventure is Unfolding, So Why Not Get Involved? Read All About It, the TVO literacy program for the first generation of video gamers." FMSAC/ACÉCM. York University. Toronto, CA. 28 May 2023. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "ThinkAbout It: Learning to Learn with ITV in the Long Seventies." SCMS. SCMS. Denver, CO, USA. 12 Apr. 2023. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Run for Your Life! And While You’re At It -- Think! Cognitive Problem Solving in a Horror/Thriller Mash-Up: AIT’s “Alternate Route.”." Century of 16mm. Indiana University Bloomington. Bloomington, IN. 14 Sep. 2023. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Designing for Learning… Together: Canadian-American ITV Co-productions and Co-broadcasting 1973-1982." Distributed Networks Project. Distributed Networks Project. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada (Online). 2 Nov. 2022. Guest Lecture.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Dispossessed Discriminations 1973: How a Salvaged ITV Co-production Preserves Canadian and American History." Film Studies Association of Canada (FSAC/ACÉC). (FSAC/ACÉC). Online, Canada. 12 May 2022. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Trade-offs: Educational TV’s Economics Literacies, Ideologies, and Narrative Designs (1975-1985." Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). SCMS. Online, USA. 31 Mar. 2022. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen and Shawn Clybor. "Finding the Curricula in situ: Lost & Found in the Classroom." Connected Learning Summit (CLS). MIT, UC Irvine. Online, MA. 19 Jul. 2021. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Taking Analog to Digital." Foundations of Digital Games (FDG). Foundations of Digital Games (FDG). online, USA. 2 Aug. 2021. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Turning Instructional Television Inside/Out: Reclaiming a Revolution from Erasure (presentation of material postponed previous year due to COVID 19)." Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). SCMS. Online, US. 19 Mar. 2021. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Learning with Media & Technology: Humanities & Social Sciences in the Public." Invited Guest lecture in graduate level course “Bridging the Public and the Humanities” taught by professors Hasia Diner and Brigid Cohen. New York University. NY, USA. 1 Nov. 2021. Guest Lecture.
Gottlieb, Owen and Deepha Sundaram. "Integrating and Negotiating the Globalizing of Religion in the Mobile Video Game Florence." Annual Meeting of the American Academy of. AAR. Online, Online. 2 Dec. 2020. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen and Shawn Clybor. "Finding Curricula in situ: Lost & Found in the Classroom." Connected Learning Summit/Cancelled due to COVID 19, auto-accepted for 2021. CLS. Cambridge, MA. 29 Jul. 2020. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Turning Instructional Television Inside/Out: Reclaiming a Revolution from Erasure. Cancelled due to COVID 19. New revised submission accepted for 2021." Society for Cinema and Media Studies. SCMS. Denver, CO. 2 Apr. 2020. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Decolonizing Board Games: Designing Learning Games for Teaching Comparative Religion (Electronic Poster/Lightning Talk)." HASTAC 2019. Unceded Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) Territory University of British Columbia. Vancouver, CA. 17 May 2019. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Lost & Found: Teaching Prosocial Aspects of Religious Legal Systems (Games and Research Showcase)." Games + Communications Ante-Conference. American University. Washington D.C., District of Columbia. 24 May 2019. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Teaching Prosocial Religious Laws. Part of “Project Briefs: Your Games is Our Textbook.”." Games for Change Festival. Games for Change. New York, New York. 19 Jun. 2019. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Inside the Design: Creating a Game Series about 12th Century Religious Law." Teach, Play, Learn. Indiana University South Bend. South Bend, Indiana. 11 Jun. 2019. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Alumni Storytelling Roundtable." Dartmouth College 250th Anniversary Celebration. Dartmouth College. Hanover, NH. 14-16 Nov. 2019. Address.
Gottlieb, Owen. "We Demand Games! Using Print-on-Demand for Prototyping and Fast-to-Market Paths in Game Design Research." Game Developers Conference. GCD. San Francisco, CA. 19 Mar. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Design-Based Research, Design Cases, and Games for Learning." Games as Research Symposium. TAG: Technoculture, Art and Games Ce. Montreal, Canada. 20 Apr. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen, et al. "Chronic Pain and Disability: Games to Transform Care." International Serious Play Conference. George Mason University. Manassas, VA. 12 Jul. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Minecrafting Bar Mitzvah: Cultivating Jewish Connections with Digital Media." Conference on Religion, Media, and Public Scholarship. International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture (ISMRC). Boulder, CO. 8 Aug. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Lost & Found - Collaboration and Competition in Religious Law in 12th Century North Africa." NASAGA 2018 North American Simulation and Gaming Association. NASAGA. Rochester, NY. 15 Nov. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Stories Guiding Play, Play Building Stories: Games for Learning and Engaged Storycraft." SLSA 2018 Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. SLSA. Toronto, CA. 15 Nov. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Invited Panelist - ESports Convening." ESports Convening. Foundation for Jewish Camp and 4G44. New York, NY. 3 Dec. 2018. Address.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Playing with Time: Teaching Jewish History with Games and Simulations in the Digital Age." National Educators Institute: The Art and Science of Teaching Jewish History in America. National Museum of American Jewish History. Philadelphia, PA. 13 Jul. 2017. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "New Design Principles for Mobile History Games." Games Learning Society 12. GLS. Madison, WI. 17 Aug. 2017. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Purple Blocks and Trade-Offs: Games Design and Learning Medieval Religious Law." Research Group on Games, Simulations, and Conflicts. Duke University. Durham, North Carolina. 17 Mar. 2017. Lecture.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Learning Game Mechanics for Teaching Legal Codes." NRJE/ASSJ. Brandeis University. Waltham, Masachusetts. 5 Jun. 2017. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. "Implications of Abstraction in Learning Mechanics." Irish Conference on Game Based Learning. University College Cork. Cork, Ireland. 23 Jun. 2017. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Finding Medieval Authenticity through Game Design: Lost & Found as Locus of Learning." Medieval Ages in the Modern World Conference (The MAMO. University of Manchester. Manchester, England. 30 Jun. 2017. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "People of the Game: Jewish Heritage, Learning, and Cultures of Play." Annual Henry Samuel Levinson Emerging Scholar in Jewish Intellectual History Lecture. University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Greensboro, North Carolina. 23 Oct. 2017. Lecture.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Learning Codes in the Age of Digital Coding: Mishneh Torah and Medieval Religious law through Gaming, from Table Top to Mobile." Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference. AJS. Washington, District of Columbia. 18 Dec. 2017. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Playing with Judaism in the Digital Age." Symposium One. Hebrew Union College. New York, New York. 14 Nov. 2016. Conference Presentation.
covering), Owen Gottlieb (Andrew Phelps, et al. "Who Owns What and Why? Student IP, Faculty IP, and Game Design Programs." GDC, Game Developers Conference. GDC. San Francisco, CA. 14 Mar. 2016. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Mobile Gameplay and Engendering Openness to Alternative Perspectives in Jewish History." Jewish Historical Understandings. Brandeis University. Walthan, MA. 25 May 2016. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Learning While Making Games…for Learning." The New Media Consortium Summer Conference. NMC. Rochester, NY. 15 Jun. 2016. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen and Braniff, William. "Games at the Intersection of Religion, Culture, and Policy: Video Games and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)." Games + Higher Education + National Impact. Wilson Center. Washington, DC. 10 Dec. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen, et al. "Videogaming and Religion Seminar: Crafting the Study of Religion and Video Games: A Roundtable Discussion of Key Perspectives." AAR Anual Meeting, 2016. AAR. Atlanta, GA. 23 Nov. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Talmud as Game System: Aspects of Digital Judaism Chapter: Jewish Games for Learning Renewing Heritage Traditions in the Digital Age." AAR Anual Meeting, 2016. AAR. Atlanta, GA. 23 Nov. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Design Principles for Narrative Games." Games Learning Society ARIS Summit 2015. Games Learning Society. Madison, WI. 7 Jul. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "ARIS 2.0." Games Learning Society ARIS Summit 2015. Games Learning Society. Madison, WI. 7 Jul. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen, et al. "Playtesting Games 2: The Sequeling (game from Gottlieb: Codename: Purple)." Games Learning Society 2015. Games Learning Society. Madison, Wisconsin. 8 Jul. 2015. Conference Presentation.
(Discussant/Moderator), Owen Gottlieb, et al. "Games for Insight & Innovation." Games Learning Society 2015. Games Learning Society. Madison, Wisconsin. 9 Jul. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Mobile History Gaming: Tikkun Olam and Civic & Democratic Education." Network for Research in Jewish Education/Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry joint Conference 2015. Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. New York, New York. 11 Jun. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Time Travel, Women's Labor Organizing, and Ethnic Identity: Catalyzing the Null Curriculum in GPS Mobile Augmented Reality History Gaming." Challenge the Past/Diversify the Future: A Critical Approach to Multi-Sensory Representations of History and Culture. University of Gothenburg. Gothenburg, Sweden. 20 Mar. 2015. Conference Presentation.
Shows/Exhibits/Installations
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Lost & Found: New Harvest Official Selection at International Conference on Meaningful Play. 12 Oct. 2022. International Conference on Meaningful Play, East Landing, Michigan. Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Lost & Found: New Harvest, Official Selection at Boston FIG. 15 Oct. 2022. Boston FIG (Festival of Indepdent Games, Boston/Online. Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Play, Make, Learn. Finalist for Gee Learning Game Awards Presentation. 5 Aug. 2021. https://www.geeawards.com/, Madison, WI (online due to COVID 19). Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Feature Game, Lost & Found: Order in the Court, nominated Tabletop Spotlight. 10-12 Oct. 2019. Indiecade 2019, Nominated Tabletop Spotlight, Santa Monica, CA. Installation.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Official Selection, Lost & Found: Order in the Court. 7 Dec. 2019. Open World Arcade, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH. Installation.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Now Play This Festival, London (official selection). 6-14 Apr. 2019. Somerset House, London. Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen. Official Selection: Lost & Found. By Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber, and Kelly Murdoch-Kitt. 22 Jul. 2018. Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) Arcade, Washington, D.C. Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen. Tech Showcase of Connected Learning Summit: Lost & Found; Lost & Found: Order in the Court. By Ian Schreiber and Kelly Murdoch-Kitt. 1 Aug. 2018. MIT, Cambridge, MA. Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen. Selected Game: Lost & Found. Boston Festival of Independent Games (FIG). By Ian Schreiber and Kelly Murdoch-Kitt. 29 Sep. 2018. MIT, Cambridge, MA. Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen. The Humanities Arcade: Gaming in the Digital Age. By Owen Gottlieb, et al. 16 Sep. 2016. Scholars' Lab, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Exhibit.
Gottlieb, Owen. Sympop: Experiential Education and Jewish Cultural Arts. 1 Jun. 2016. Temple Micah, in cooperation with The George Washington University, Graduate School of Education, Washington, DC. Performance.
Gottlieb, Owen. Jewish Time Jump: New York (Featured Video Game and Poster). 24 Apr. 2015. DBMK: Diversifying Barbie and Mortal Kombat, an NSF Sponsored Workshop on Gender, Diversity, and Serious Games, Philadelphia. Exhibit.
Journal Paper
Sundaram, Dheepa and Owen Gottlieb. "'It's so normal, and … meaningful.' Playing with Narrative, Artifacts, and Cultural Difference in Florence." gamevironments 16. (2022): 68-99. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Minecrafting Bar Mitzvah: Two Rabbis Negotiating and Cultivating Learner-Driven Inclusion through New Media." The Journal of Religion, Media, and Digital Culture: 9. 2 (2020): 185-206. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. "Acts of Meaning, Resource Diagrams, and Essential Learning Behaviors: The Design Evolution of Lost & Found." International Journal of Designs for Learning 11. 1 (2020): 151-164. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Re‐playing Maimonides\' Codes: Designing Games to Teach Religious Legal Systems." Teaching Theology and Religion 21. 4 (2018): 246-259. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. "Prosocial Religion and Games: Lost & Found." Well Played: A Journal on Video Games, Value, and Meaning 7. 2 (2018): 17-41. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Time Travel, Labour History, and the Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge for Mobile Augmented Reality History Games." International Journal of Heritage Studies 24. 3 (2018): 287–299. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Finding Lost & Found: Designer’s Notes from the Process of Creating a Jewish Game for Learning." Gamevironments 7. Special Issue: Gamevironments (2017): 42-65. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Introduction: Jewish Gamevironments — Exploring Understanding with Playful Systems." Gamevironments 7. Special Issue: Gamevironments (2017): 1-4. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Who Really Said What? Mobile Historical Situated Documentary as Liminal Learning Space." Gamevironments. 5 (2016): 237-2 5. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ayala Fader. "Occupy Judaism: Religion, Digital Media, and the Public Sphere." Anthropological Quarterly 88. 3 (2015): 759-793. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Current Key Perspectives in Video Gaming and Religion: Theses by Owen Gottlieb." Gamevironments 1. 3 (2015): 18-25. Web.
Book Chapter
Gottlieb, Owen and Shawn Clybor. "Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum with the Lost & Found Game Series." Teaching the middle ages through modern games: Using, modding and creating games for education and impact. Ed. Robert Houghton. Oldenbourg, Germany: De Gruyter, 2022. 131-154. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Playing at the crossroads of religion and law: Historical milieu, context and curriculum hooks in Lost & Found." Middle Ages in Modern Culture: History and Authenticity in Contemporary Medievalism. London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2021. 140-160. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. "Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations and Multi-Game Approaches." Rerolling Boardgames: Essays on Themes, Systems, Experiences, and Ideologies. Ed. Douglas Brown and Esther MacCallum Stewart. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2020. 195-211. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Jewish Time Jump New York [Featured Game]." Jewish Time Jump New York [Featured Game] in book Learning, Education & Games, Volume 3: 100 Games to Use in the Classroom and Beyond. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press, 2019. 200-205. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Your iPhone Cannot Escape History, and Neither Can You: Self-Reflexive Design for a Mobile History Learning Game." Mobile Learning: Perspectives on Practice and Policy. Ed. Danielle Herro, et al. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing, 2018. 247-264. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Design-Based Research: Mobile Gaming for Learning Jewish History, Tikkun, Olam, and Civics." Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion. Ed. Vit Sisler, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, and Xenia Zeiler. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. 83-100. Print.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Jewish Games for Learning: Renewing Heritage Traditions in the Digital Age." Digital Judaism: Jewish Negotiations with Digital Media and Culture. Ed. Heidi A. Campbell. New York, New York: Routledge, 2015. 91-109. Print.
Published Game, Application or Software
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Lost & Found: New Harvest. Game. MAGIC Spell Studios. 2020.
Gottlieb, Owen, Ian Schreiber, and Kelly Murdoch-Kitt. Lost & Found. Game. MAGIC Spell Studios. 2017.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Lost & Found: Order in the Court - the Party Game. Game. MAGIC Spell Studios. 2017.
Gotlieb, Owen, Ian Schreiber, and Kelly Murdoch Kitt. Lost & Found. Game. MAGIC Spell Studios. 2017.
Gottlieb, Owen and Ian Schreiber. Lost & Found: Order in the Court - the Party Game. Game. MAGIC Spell Studios. 2017.
Published Conference Proceedings
Gottlieb, Owen. "The Lost & Found Game Series: Teaching Medieval Religious Law in Context." Proceedings of the Connected Learning Summit. Ed. Jeremiah Remi Kalir. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press, 2019. Web.
Amidon, Owen Gottlieb, Dakota Herold, Edward. "Card Tricks: A Workflow for Scalability and Dynamic Content Creation Using Paper2D and Unreal Engine 4." Proceedings of the Foundations of Digital Games. Ed. Deterding, Canossa, Harteveld. Cape Cod, Massachusetts: FDG, 2017. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen. "New Design Principles for Mobile History Games." Proceedings of the Games Learning Society 12. Ed. Slater, S and Barany, A. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press, 2017. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen and Crystle Martin (University of California, Irvine). "Building a Network for Early Career Scholars of Games and Learning." Proceedings of the Games Learning Society 12. Ed. Slater, S. and Barany, A. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press, 2017. Web.
Gottlieb, Owen. "Time Travel, Women's Labor Organizing, and Ethnic Identity: Catalyzing the Null Curriculum in GPS Mobile Augmented Reality History Gaming." Proceedings of the Challenge the Past/Diversify the Future. Ed. Jonathan Westin, Anna Foka, and Adam Chapman. Gothenburg, Sweden: University of Gothenburg, 2015. Print.
National/International Competition Award Winner
Gottlieb, Owen, Ian Schreiber, and Kelly Murdoch-Kitt. International Meaningful Play Conference. Best Non-Digital Game. East Lansing, Michigan, 2018.
Gottlieb, Owen, Ian Schreiber, and Kelly Murdoch-Kitt. International Serious Play Awards. Bronze Medal (NY exhibition). Buffalo, New York, 2018.
Gottlieb, Owen, Ian Schreiber, and Kelly Murdoch-Kitt. International Serious Play Awards. Bronze Medal (DC Exhibition). Washington, DC, 2018.
Journal Editor
Editor, Owen Gottlieb, special issue, ed. Gamevironments. Bremen, Germany: University of Bremen, 2017. Web.

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