Dr. Rogelio E. Cardona-Rivera (he/they) is a Puerto Rican Assistant Professor and Founding Faculty of the Division of Games, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at the University of Utah. Prior to joining the faculty at Utah, Rogelio was a research scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and Disney Research.

At Utah, they direct the Laboratory for Quantitative Experience Design, a community of scholars who are establishing cognitive principles and developing artificial intelligence technologies to support the design of playful artifacts that help convey stories. Dr. Cardona-Rivera has authored over 30 articles and books on artificial intelligence, computational psychology, technical game design, and interactive narrative, and has obtained over $1.5 million in support for their research projects toward establishing a science of game design; including the CAREER award and collaborative grants from the National Science Foundation, sponsorships from entertainment industry leaders such as Activision | Blizzard and Facebook Meta, and grants from the Department of Energy, IARPA, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. In 2017, they were recognized as a “New and Future Educator in AI” by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), where they presently serve as a Founding Member of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Rogelio earned their Ph.D. in Computer Science with minor in Cognitive Science from North Carolina State University, and their B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.

Dr. Cardona-Rivera’s work is driven by the desire to empower creativity in our communities and to foster liberated worlds in our society. Their work seeks to augment people interested in telling stories and creating virtual worlds, not replace them. These virtual realities foster our collective capacity to imagine more-just worlds than the one we inhabit. By helping people create them, Rogelio hopes to grow our collective capacity to imagine the liberated worlds we long for.