Jane McGonigal is IFTF’s Director of Game Research and Development and leads IFTF’s public membership program, Urgent Optimists. She is a world-renowned creator of games designed to solve real problems and change real lives, most notably SuperBetter, which has helped more than 1 million players recover from symptoms of anxiety, depression, concussion and chronic pain. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World and SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully. Her latest book, IMAGINABLE: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything—Even Things That Seem Impossible Today, draws on scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable.She has also created games for organizations including American Heart Association, the International Olympics Committee, the World Bank, and the New York Public Library. Jane’s research focuses on how games are transforming the way we lead our real lives and how they can be used to anticipate hard-to-predict futures, ready ourselves for any future scenario, and increase our resilience and well-being. Before joining IFTF, Jane taught game design and game theory at the University of California, Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute. She has a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
Expertise:
games that challenge players to tackle real-world problems—poverty, hunger and climate change—through planetary-scale collaboration
