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Shane J. M. Liesegang

www.shaneliesegang.com
e-mail
(remove pi from my e-mail address to make it work)

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EDUCATION

Carnegie Mellon University — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Master of Entertainment Technology
Graduated May 2006
Jointly conferred degree from School of Computer Science and College of Fine Arts

University of Virginia — Charlottesville, Virginia
Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Science and Drama (Computer Science Minor)
Graduated May 2004
Echols Scholar, Dean's List, Intermediate Honors

RELEVANT COURSEWORK

Story Structure for Interactive Designers: Studied traditional storytelling structural theory and evaluated its relevance and applicability to interactive media in a small group of students with playwright Milan Stitt and game designer Chris Klug. (CMU)

Game Design: Created five working prototypes of original games, including playground, board, card, and dice games while studying and evaluating existing designs. (CMU)

Building Virtual Worlds: Worked as a modeler, animator, and producer in four-person teams of artists and technologists to produce interactive environments for platforms including virtual reality, audience interaction (leaning and laser pointers sensed by a camera to affect the on-screen action), and animatronics. (CMU)

Game Design Workshop: Worked in a team to create a design, platform, toolset, and prototype in C++ for The Rest is Silence, an interactive version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. (U.Va.)

Aesthetic and Culture of Games: Studied academic ludic theory and contemporary issues surrounding gaming culture and design. (U.Va.)

Realtime Rendering: Designed and implemented a 3D game engine in OpenGL while researching modern realtime graphics techniques. (U.Va.)

Computer Graphics: Studied low-level algorithms for two and three dimensional imagery and created programs implementing them, including a raytracer and image processing utility. (U.Va.)

Other Courses: Artificial Intelligence, Lighting Design, Theatrical Directing, Makeup, Playwriting, Stage Combat, Theatre History, Scenic Technology

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

Electronic Arts Los Angeles: Game Designer, Spring 2006 - Present
Creating prototypes, designing game systems, and contributing to story and character development for the first of Steven Spielberg's games with EA.

Experimental Gameplay: Gamemaker, Fall 2005
Part of a four person team responsible for creating one game per week per person. Each individual creates art assets, designs the interaction, and programs the implementation. The project is designed to explore novel modes of interaction in a field (traditional keyboard/mouse-driven computer games) that has been stagnant in recent years. All games implemented in OpenGL with a C++ framework.

Building Virtual Worlds: Stage Manager, Fall 2005
Following my stint as assistant stage manager in 2004, I coordinated the technical setup and execution of the end-of-semester gala presentation for Building Virtual Worlds. Implementation of schematics and organization of personnel to ensure that the highly technical and volatile show goes off as smoothly as possible.

Walt Disney Imagineering R&D: Media Programming Intern, Summer 2005
Researched and evaluated new technologies, created rapid prototypes, and learned design/implementation processes for new projects involving theme park attractions and mobile interactive media.

Interbots Initiative: Programmer, Designer, Spring 2005
Worked in a ten-person team to create a new animatronic character. Particular tasks included interface design for live-puppeteering and improvement of our in-house autonomous content authoring tool.

Brown College at Monroe Hill: Shama Lama Ding Dong (Chief Operating Officer), 2003-2004
Lead weekly meetings of 20+ member governance board to coordinate the large-scale plans and details of running the oldest residential college at the University of Virginia, with nearly 300 students in residence. Served as contact point for various community projects, allocating resources (including ~$30,000 annual budget), and directing committees.

U.Va. Drama Department: Stage Manager, Spring 2003
Served as intermediary between various production departments, in charge of communicating director's vision, running production meetings, coordinating technical efforts and overall maintenance during run of show.

U.Va. Computer Science Department: Teaching Assistant, Fall 2003
Held regular office hours, graded programming assignments, and performed individual tutoring session for students in CS 201: Software Development Methods.

SKILLSET

Strong Proficiency: System Design, C/C++, PHP, HTML, XML, OpenGL, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, Mac OS (Classic and X), Windows, GNU/Linux

Moderate Proficiency: MySQL, Java, C#, GWT, Apache, FreeBSD

Familiarity: Maya, x86 Assembly, Perl, Python, Objective-C (Cocoa), Cg, GLSL, ActionScript, Edith

INTERESTS

Video Games, Theatre, Cinema, Artificial Intelligence, Environmental Design, Cooking/Baking, Rowing, Professional Football, Classic Literature, Scientific History, Computer Science Education, Live Music, Home Theatre