2025 Publications/Awards

Journal Papers:

• Roshanaei, M., Rezapour, R., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2025). Talk, Listen, Connect: How Humans and AI Evaluate Empathy in Responses to Emotionally Charged Narratives. AI and Society. Springer Nature.

• Received Best Paper Award at CHI Play 2025: Johns, MJ, Escarce, M., Crosby, A., Lu, Y., Seif El-Nasr, M., Melcer, E., Isbister, K. (2025). Wildfire Games: A Community Approach to Designing Serious Games as Interventions for Wildfire Preparedness. CHI Play.

Conference Peer-Reviewed Papers:

• Escarce, M., Johns, MJ., Lu, Yiyang, Toledo, A., Lai, T., Ho, B., Dhandapani, K., Isbister, K., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2025). Fostering Collaborative Knowledge-Building and Resilience Through Player Discourse in Serious Games for Wildfire Preparedness. Joint Conference on Serious Games.

• Hendawy, M., Zaman, U., Esmail, O. K., Li, J., and Seif El Nasr, M. (2025). Towards A Games Ladder for Real-World Action. Joint Conference on Serious Games.

• Hendawy, M., Pfau, J., Teng, Z., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2025). Towards Digital Circular Urban Futures: Exploring Circularity in the Smart City Strategies of Berlin, Vienna, and Zurich. 6th Symposium on Circular Economy and Sustainability.

• Roshanaei, M., Rezapour, S. , and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2025). Talk, Listen, Connect: Navigating Empathy in Human-AI Interactions. In Proceedings of Machines as (new) actors in digital communication: Challenges and Opportunities for Science and Society,

• Received Best Paper Award at DIS 2025: Maram, S., Malegaonkar, Y., Escarce, M., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2025). Pray For Green, Play For Green: Integrating Religion into Climate Change Serious Games, ACM DIS 2025.

2024 Selected Publications/Awards

Journal Papers:

• Maram, S., Pfau, J., Kasar, M. R., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024). "A Topic Modeling Approach Towards Understanding the Discourse between Religion and Videogames on Reddit." ACM CHI Play 2024, Tampere, Finland

• Maram, S.S., Kleinman, E, Villareale, J.,Fox, B., Zhu, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024). : "Ah, I See - Facilitating Process reflection in gameplay through a novel Spatio-Temporal Visualization System, ACM CHI 2024, Hawaii, USA

• Kleinman, E., Xu, J., Pfau, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024). : "Trust the Process'': An Exploratory Study of Process Visualizations for Self-Reflection in League of Legends, ACM CHI Play 2024, Tampere, Finland

• Kleinman, E., Habibi, R., Powell, G. B., Reeves, B., Prather, J., & Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024, May). ``Backseat Gaming" A Study of Co-Regulated Learning within a Collegiate Male Esports Community. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

• Pfau, J., Charan, M., Kleinman, E., & Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024, May). Damage Optimization in Video Games: A Player-Driven Co-Creative Approach. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Hawaii, USA.

Conference Peer-Reviewed Papers:

• Teng, Z., Pfau, J., Maram, S. S., & Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024, May). Interactive Player Journeys: Co-designing a Process Visualization System to Video Game Analytics. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games 

• Maram, S., Malegaonkar, Y., Escarce, M. J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024). Shloka: Developing Climate Change interventions through a lens of Religion and Videogames. ACM CHI PLAY 2024, Tampre, Finland

• Maram, S. S., Amato, A., Troiano, G. M., Sutherland, S. C., Matuk, C., Melcer, E., Carstensdottir, E., Harteveld, C., & Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024). An instructor's lens into the role of AI in teaching experimental research via gamification. In Proceedings of the 39th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing 

• Maram, S. S., Villareale, J., Zhu, J., & Seif El-Nasr, M. (2024, April). Open Player Modeling-Using AI to Help Reflection and Learning in Serious Games. In Proceedings of the 39th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing 

• Johns, M. J., Emmanuel Chinedum Ezenwa, Seunghyun Lee, Thomas Maiorana, Ciel Wood, Josh D. Levano, Rita Aksum Tesfay et al. "Participatory Design of a Serious Game to Improve Wildfire Preparedness with Community Residents and Experts." In Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-8. 2024.

2023 Selected Publications/Awards

Journal Papers:

• Received Honorable Mention in CHI 2023: Pfau, J. and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). Player-Driven Game Analytics: The Case of Guild Wars 2. CHI 2023. 

• Kleinman, E., Villareale, J., Shergadwala, M., Teng, Z., Bryant, A., Zhu, J., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). "What else can I do?" Examining the Impact of Community Data on Adaptation and Quality of Reflection in an Educational Game. CHI 2023.

Conference Peer-Reviewed Papers:

• Habibi, R., Pfau, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). "Modeling Player Personality Factors from In-Game Behavior and Affective Expression." ACII 2023, What’s next in Affect Modelling Workshop. 

• Kashani, A., Pfau, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). "Assessing the Impact of Personality on Affective States from Video Game Communication." ACII 2023, Social and Affective Intelligence (SAI Workshop).

• Maram, S., Pfau, J., Villareale, J., Teng, Z., Zhu, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). "Mining Player Behavior Patterns from Domain-Based Spatial Abstraction in Games." IEEE CoG 2023.

• Maram, S., Villareale, J.,Fox, B., Zhu, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). "Parallel OPM: A Visualization System for Analyzing Peers Board States for Gameplay Reflection" IEEE CoG 2023 (Demo Paper).

• Maram, S. S., Pfau, J., Dodechani, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). A Visual Ethnographic Study at Cultural Spaces to Identify Character Creation Opportunities. ACM Foundations of Digital Games.

• Habibi, R., Johannes Pfau, J., Maram, S. S., Li, J., Larsen, B., Xu, J., Kashani, A., Sisodiya, S., Holmes, J., Teng, Z., Carstensdottir, E.,and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2023). Under Pressure: A Multi-Modal Analysis of Induced Stressors in Games for Resilience. ACM Foundations of Digital Games.

2022 Selected Publications/Awards

Journal Papers:

• Kleinman, E., Habibi, R., Yao, Y., Gayle, C., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). A Time and Phase for Everything" - Towards A Self Regulated Learning Perspective on Computational Support for Esports. CHIPlay.

• Kleinman, E., Shergadwala, M., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). Kills, Deaths, and (Computational) Assists: Identifying Opportunities for Computational Support in Esport Learning. 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

•  Kleinman, E., Shergadwala, M., Teng, Z., Villareale, J., Baryant, A., Zhu, J., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). Analyzing Students' Problem Solving Sequences: A Human-in-the-loop Approach. Journal of Learning Analytics.

• Duval, J., Thakkar, R., Du, D., Chin, K., Luo, S., Elor, A., Seif El-Nasr, M., and John, M. (2022). Designing Spellcasters: Immersive Virtual Reality Stroke Rehabilitation from Clinician Perspectives: A Customizable Gesture Based Immersive Virtual Reality Game for Stroke Rehabilitation. TACCESS.

• Haider, A., Harteveld, C., Johnson, D., Birk, M. V., Mandryk, R. L., Seif El-Nasr, M., Nacke, L. E., Gerling, K., Abeele, V. V. (2022). miniPXI: Development and Validation of an Eleven-Item Measure of the Player Experience Inventory. CHIPlay. 

Conference Peer-Reviewed Papers:

• Habibi, R., Pfau, J., Holmes, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). EAI: Empathetic AI for Empowering Resilience in Games. AIIDE Workshop on Experimental AI in Games.

• Teng, Z., Pfau, J., Maram, S. S., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). Player Segmentation with INSPECT: Revealing Systematic Behavior Differences within MMORPG and Educational Game Case Studies. CHI Play.

• Kleinman, E., Villareale, J., Shergadwala, M., Teng, Z., Bryant, A., Zhu, J., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). Open to Interpretation: Towards an Understanding of how Players Make Meaning from Post-Play Process Visualizations. IFIP-ICEC.

• Pfau, J., Debus, M., Juul, J., Hammar, E., Canossa, A. and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). Predicting Success Factors of Video Game Titles and Companies. IFIP-ICEC.

• Partlan, N., Soto, L., Howe, J., Shrivastava, S., Seif El-Nasr, M., Marsella, S. (2022). EvolvingBehavior: Towards Co-Creative Evolution of Behavior Trees for Game NPCs. Foundations of Digital Games. 

• Jemmali, C., Seif El-Nasr, M., and Cooper, S. (2022). The Effects of Adaptive Procedural Levels on Engagement and Performance in an Educational Programming Game. Foundations of Digital Games. 

• Habibi, R and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). Understanding emotions, social belonging, and resilience using ARG. ISRE 2022 workshop.

• Received Best Paper Award at HCII 2022: Habibi, R., Maram, S., Pfau, J., Wei, J.,  Sisodiya, S., Kashani, A., Carstensdottir, E.,  Seif El-Nasr, M. (2022). A Data-driven Design of AR Alternate Reality Games to Measure Resilience. HCII Conference . 

• Maram, S. S., Pfau, J., Habibi, R., and Seif El-Nasr, M. "AstraVerse: Establishing a Culturally Sensitive Framework for Integrating Elements from Mythological Backgrounds". IFIP-ICEC 2022. 

2021 Selected Publications/Awards

• Kleinman, E., Gayle, C., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). "Because I'm Bad at the Game!" A Microanalytical Study of Self-Regulated Learning in League of Legends. Frontiers in Psychology, Educational Psychology.

• Zhu, J. and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). Open Player Modeling: Empowering Players through Data Transparency. EXAG Workshop at AIIDE. 

• Madkour, A., Marsella, S., Harteveld, C., Seif El-Nasr, M. and Van de Meent, J. (2021). Guiding Generative Graph Grammars of Dungeon Mission Graphs via Examples. EXAG Workshop at AIIDE. 

• Kleinman, E., Preetham, N., Teng, Z., Bryant, A. and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). "What Happened Here!?" Towards a Taxonomy for User Interaction with Spatio-Temporal Game Data Visualization. Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. 5, CHIPLAY.

• Shergadwala, M., Teng, Z., Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). An Approach for Computational Cognitive Modeling of Player Behaviors: Towards Player Models with a Theory of Mind. AIIDE (AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment). Poster Presentation. 

• Ahmad, S., Seif El-Nasr, M., and Elhamifar, E. (2021). Hierarchical Dual Attention-Based Recurrent Neural Networks for Individual and Group Activity Recognition. AIIDE (AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment).  

• Partlan, N., Kleinman, E., Howe, J., Ahmad, S., Marsella, S., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). Design-Driven Requirements for Computationally Co-Creative Game AI Design Tools. Foundations of Digital Games.

• Shergadwala, M. and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). Human-Centric Design Requirements and Challenges for Enabling Human-AI Interaction in Engineering Design: An Interview Study. Proceedings of International Design Engineering Technical Conferences Computers and Information in Engineering

Conference.

• Kleinman, E., Seif El-Nasr, M.. (2021). Using Data to "Git Gud": A Push for a Player-Centric approach to the Use of Data in Esports, In EHPHCI: Esports and High Performance HCI Workshop, 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

• Shergadwala, M.N., Seif El-Nasr, M.. (2021). Esports Agents with a Theory of Mind: Towards Better Engagement, Education, and Engineering, In EHPHCI: Esports and High Performance HCI Workshop, 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

• Kleinman, E., Chojnacki, S., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). The Gangs All Here: How People Used Games to cope with COVID19 Quarantine. CHI 2021.

• Carstensdottir, E., Kleinman, E., Williams, R., and Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). "Naked and on fire":Examining Player Agency Experiences in Narrative-Focused Gameplay. CHI 2021.

• Bunian, S., Li, K., Jemmali, C., Harteveld, C., Fu, Y.,Seif El-Nasr, M. (2021). VINS: Visual Search for Mobile User Interface Design. CHI 2021.

• Received Honorable Mention at CHI 2021: Saksono, H., Castaneda-sceppa, C., Homan, J., Seif El-Nasr, M., and Parker, A. G. (2021). StoryMap: Using Social Modeling and Self-Modeling for Supporting Physical Activity Among Low-SES Families. CHI 2021.