Alexander Nareyek

Alexander Nareyek is the director of the interactive intelligence Labs (ii Labs) and the director of the multi-disciplinary Games Lab at the National University of Singapore, where he also holds an assistant professorship. He received his diploma and Ph.D. from the TU Berlin/Germany, held positions at GMD-FIRST/Germany, Carnegie Mellon University/USA, and the Cork Constraint Computation Centre/Ireland, and served as CEO and CTO for his company Digital Drama Studios/Czech Republic (virtual actor technology). He is also the founder/owner/director of the media company Kingdom Crafting Pte Ltd (computer game production).

He is one of the leading figures in the field of artificial intelligence for games and serves on numerous academic and industrial committees. For the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), he is responsible for matters regarding artificial intelligence, and serves as chairperson of the IGDA's Artificial Intelligence Interface Standards Committee.

Alexander Nareyek's current research projects include "Automated Storyplanning in Games", and Crackpot, the next generation of the labs' planning system (C++; successor of the DragonBreath engine / EXCALIBUR project).

[Further CV details at LinkedIn]

(You might also be interested in some general group coordination/management advice.)

Chairperson and founder of the AI Interface Standards Committee, 2002- (ongoing)

Chairperson of the International Game Developers Association's Artificial Intelligence SIG, 2003- (ongoing)

Moderator and co-founder of the International Game Developers Association's Artificial Intelligence SIG, 2000-2002

Member of the Media Development Authority of Singapore's Interactive & Digital Media Expert Group (IDM EG), 2007- (ongoing)

Member of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Games Technical Committee, 2007- (ongoing)

Member of the Student Game-based Competition sub-committee of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, 2010- (ongoing)

Editor of the Game AI Newsletter:   02/2008 09/2006 02/2006 09/2005 02/2005 12/2004   [Subscribe to the Newsletter]   [Tell me about a news item]

Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 2008- (ongoing)

Guest editor of the Constraints Journal's special issue on Planning, 2003

Organizer and Moderator of the 2009 Game Developers Conference Artificial Intelligence SIG roundtable

Moderator of the 2008 Games Convention Asia Conference (GCAC) session on "Research and Teaching in Gaming - What's the Status?"

Chair of the Serious Games for Education workshop at the 5th Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference (APMEC) 2008

Moderator of the 2007 Games Convention Asia Conference (GCAC) session on "Research and Teaching in Gaming - What's the Status?"

Moderator of the Education in Games Roundtable at the Asian Game Developers Summit 2006

Co-Moderator of the 2005 Game Developers Conference Roundtable "AI Interface Standards: First Specifications"

Co-Moderator of the 2004 Game Developers Conference Roundtable "AI Interface Standards: Open Beta"

Co-Moderator of the 2003 Game Developers Conference Roundtable "AI Interface Standards: The Road Ahead"

Moderator of the 2002 Game Developers Conference Roundtable "Toward a Standardization of AI Interfaces"

Chair of the IJCAI-2001 Workshop on Planning with Resources

Chair of the ECAI-2000 Workshop on Local Search for Planning & Scheduling

Chair of the AAAI-2000 Workshop on Constraints and AI Planning

Alexander Nareyek. 2011. Why People Play Games? Brain Processes in Gaming. Invited Talk at the Defence, Science and Research 2011 Conference (DSR 2011). Alexander Nareyek. 2006. Virtual Actors - The Next Frontier. Invited Talk at the Asian Game Developers Summit 2006. Alexander Nareyek. 2006. Game AI - Industry vs. Academia - Round 1. Invited Talk at the Joint International Conference on CyberGames and Interactive Entertainment 2006 (CGIE 2006). Alexander Nareyek. 2006. Artificial Intelligence for Electronic Gaming - State of the Art and Challenges. Invited Talk at the Fourth Annual International Conference in Computer Game Design and Technology. Alexander Nareyek. 2006. Game AI is Dead. Long Live Game AI! Invited Talk at the Third Montréal International Game Summit. Alexander Nareyek. 2003. At the Intersection of Planning and Constraint Programming. Keynote Talk at the CAEPIA-2003 Workshop on Planning, Scheduling and Temporal Reasoning. Alexander Nareyek. 2002. Is Research Going in the Right Direction? Keynote Talk at the Seventh International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving From Nature (PPSN 2002). Alexander Nareyek. 2000. Constraint Programming for Computer Games: Mastering "Real"-World Requirements. Keynote Talk at the Thirteenth International Conference on Applications of Prolog (INAP 2000).

Program Committee Member of the 2011 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2011)

Program Committee Member of the EPIA 2001 Thematic Track on Artificial Intelligence Methodologies for Games (AI4Games 2011)

Program Committee Member of the Sixth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2011)

Program Committee Member of the ICAPS 2011 Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction for Planning and Scheduling Problems (COPLAS'11)

Program Committee Member of the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2010)

Program Committee Member of the IEEE Games Innovation Conference (GIC 2010)

Program Committee Member of the Workshop on Intelligent Narrative Technologies (INT3)

Program Committee Member of the ICAPS 2010 Workshop on Planning in Games

Program Committee Member of the ICAPS 2010 Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction for Planning and Scheduling Problems (COPLAS'10)

Program Committee Member of the Fifth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2009)

Program Committee Member of the ICAPS 2009 Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction for Planning and Scheduling Problems (COPLAS'09)

Program Committee Member of the IEEE Games Innovation Conference Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Games Stream of the International IEEE Consumer Electronics Society's Games Innovations Conference 2009 (ICE-GIC 09)

Program Committee Member of the 2009 AISB'09 Symposium: AI & Games

Program Committee Member of the 2009 AAAI Spring Symposium on Intelligent Narrative Technologies 2

Program Committee Member of the Fourth International Conference on Games Research and Development (CyberGames 2008)

Program Committee Member of the Fourth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2008)

Program Committee Member of the CP/ICAPS 2008 Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction for Planning and Scheduling Problems (COPLAS'08)

Program Committee Member of the ECAI 2008 Workshop Artificial Intelligence in Games (AIG-08)

Program Committee Member of the Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2007)

Program Committee Member of the AIIDE 2007 Workshop on Optimizing Player Satisfaction

Program Committee Member of the Third International Conference on Games Research and Development (CyberGames 2007)

Program Committee Member of the Second International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts (DIMEA 2007)

Program Committee Member of the 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2007)

Program Committee Member of the 2007 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2007)

Program Committee Member of the CP/ICAPS 2007 Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction Techniques for Planning and Scheduling Problems (COPLAS'07)

Program Committee Member of the ICAPS 2007 Workshop on Planning in Games (PG 2007)

Program Committee Member of the First International Conference on Digital Interactive Media Entertainment and Arts (DIME 2006)

Program Committee Member of the SAB-06 Workshop on Adaptive Approaches for Optimizing Player Satisfaction in Computer and Physical Games

Program Committee Member of the Sixth International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA'06)

Program Committee Member of the ICAPS 2006 Workshop on AI Planning for Computer Games and Synthetic Characters

Organization Committee Member of the ICAPS 2006 Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction Techniques for Planning and Scheduling Problems

Program Committee Member of the Second International Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2006)

Program Committee Member of the Fifth International Working Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA'05)

Program Committee Member of the IJCAI 2005 Workshop on Reasoning, Representation, and Learning in Computer Games

Program Committee Member of the First International Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2005)

Program Committee Member of the SCI 2005 Track on Operations Research, Tools & Applications

Program Committee Member of the Second Multidisciplinary International Conference on Scheduling: Theory and Applications (MISTA 2005)

Program Committee Member of the 23rd Workshop of the UK Planning and Scheduling Special Interest Group (PlanSIG 2004)

Program Committee Member of the Tenth International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2004)

Program Committee Member of the Twenty-First International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2004)

Program Committee Member of the ECAI 2004 Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction Techniques for Planning and Scheduling Problems

Program Committee Member of the AAAI-04 Workshop on Challenges in Game AI

Program Committee Member of the Fourth International Working Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2003)

Program Committee Member of the First Multidisciplinary International Conference on Scheduling: Theory and Applications (MISTA 2003)

Program Committee Member of the Third Workshop on Agents for Business Automation (ABA-03)

Program Committee Member of the SCI 2003 Track on Operations Research, Tools & Applications

Program Committee Member of the CG'02 Workshop on Agents in Computer Games

Organization Committee Member of the 2001 European Space Agency's Workshop on On-Board Autonomy

Program Committee Member of the Fifteenth Workshop on Planning, Scheduling, Configuration and Design (PuK2001)

Program Committee Member of the SCCC 2000 Workshop on Advances & Trends in AI for Problem Solving

Lecturer of "EE4702 - Game World Mechanics" (National University of Singapore; year 2008/2009, semester 2; year 2009/2010, semester 2, year 2010/2011, semester 2) Lecturer of "EE3702 - Electronic Gaming" (National University of Singapore; year 2007/2008, semester 1; year 2008/2009, semester 1; year 2009/2010, semester 1; year 2010/2011, semester 1; year 2011/2012, semester 1) Lecturer of "EE4217 - Technology of Digital Entertainment" (National University of Singapore; year 2006/2007, semester 2) Tutor of "EE2012 - Analytical Methods in Electrical and Computer Enigineering" (National University of Singapore; year 2006/2007, semester 1 and 2; year 2007/2008, semester 2) Lecturer of "Seminar Softwaretechnik: Constraint Programming" (Technical University of Berlin; year 1998/1999, winter semester) Member of the NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering, 2009- (ongoing) Mentor at the 2006 Singapore X|Media|Lab

PhD Students: Eric VIDAL. 2008- (ongoing) Amit KUMAR. 2007- (ongoing)

Master Students: Ongoing: Zhengmiao TIAN 2011: National University of Singapore: Jun HU ("Using Case-based Planning to Assist Local-Search-based Planning") 2010: National University of Singapore: Wee Tan CHEE ("Transaction Tracking for Multiplayer Games") 2009: National University of Singapore: Michael Toh Kong WONG ("Biomeasures for Analyzing a Game Player Experience") 2004: Technical University of Munich / Germany: Daniel Weiß ("A Modular Graphical User Interface for Interactive Planning") 2003: Technical University of Berlin / Germany: Tim Bärmann ("Realisierung struktureller Constraints")

Final Year Project Students: [Available Topics] Ongoing: National University of Singapore: Ankit KUSHWAHA ("Dynamic Pricing Strategies for Virtual Goods"), Ronald Jun Guo TEO ("Dynamic Pricing Strategies for Virtual Goods"), Rudy Hartono PEK ("Games vs. Movies - The Role of Own Acting"), Priyadarshini BANERJEE ("Players' Exploration vs. Sticking to the Tested and True") 2011: National University of Singapore: Fang Yong FOO ("A Real-Time Engine for 2D Game Character Modifications"), Siyuan LIU ("An Artist Interface for the Specification of 2D Game Character Modifications"), Aditya Kristanto GOENAWAN ("Multi-Unit Tactical Pathplanning: Real-Time Dynamic Adaptation"), Unmukt GOEL ("Analyzing a Game Player's Experience"), Da WANG ("A Test Game for Psychological Experiments"), Saba LAL ("Empathy: Superman vs. Joe the Plumber"), Chrystal Yan Ling ANG ("Motivation Dynamics"), Bich Hong THI DAO ("Optimizing the Tension Curve for Entertainment"), Siqiang XU ("Player Reactions to Unexpected Reward Outcomes"), Augustine Zi Eu CHEONG ("Enhancing a Graphical User Interface for Planning"), Bharat BHATIA ("Visual Analysis of the Run-time Performance of a Planning System"), Shruthi RAMACHANDIRAN ("Memory Optimization for Dynamic Artificial Intelligence Systems") 2010: National University of Singapore: Xuanyun Calista LEE ("How to Show and Act out Character Traits"), Daniel Wei TAN ("Gesture Design for Virtual Characters"), Tammy Man Li PAH ("Visualization Techniques for 2D Game Characters: an Artist Tool"), Neo Yuzhao NI ("Multi-Unit Tactical Pathplanning: Optimization and Extension"), Tracy Hui Li PAH ("Strategies for Avoiding Pleasure Conflicts in Multi-Player Games"), Tsyr Harn KOH ("Motivation Generation Techniques for Computer Games"), Zhang Pei CHAO ("Cues and Magnitude of Motivation for Computer Games"), Shi LI ("Game Physics Manipulation"), Cindy Si Min HO ("The Impact of Time Pressure on Motivation, Pleasure and Aversion"), Shang Jia TING ("The Impact of Perceived Effort on Motivation, Pleasure and Aversion"), Larry Jun Wen TOK ("Motivation and Perceived Pleasure and Aversion"), Samuel Sheng Nuo LIEW ("Analyzing the Intensity Roller Coaster in Entertainment"), Anita Shenglan KANG ("Memory Mechanisms for Entertainment Experiences"), Chern Kuan GOH ("Magnitude of Reward Propagation to Earliest Predictors"), Xinying CHEAH ("Reward Differences in Seeing an Action vs. Own Acting"), Christopher Aldo TANDAR ("Enhancing a Graphical User Interface for Planning"), Liang LI ("Transitioning to an Object-Oriented Language for Planning Systems"), Viet LE QUOC ("Memory Optimization for Dynamic Artificial Intelligence Systems"), Padma SUBRAMANIAN ("Dynamic Music Generation for Games"), Manoj XAVIER ("Hierarchical Action Handling for Continuous Local-Search-based Planning"), J.Vikneswaran A/L PALANIANDY ("Designing a Tool for Client-Server Architecture Evaluation for Online Game Service Providers") 2009: National University of Singapore: Shan Ming KOH ("Visualization Techniques for 2D Game Characters: Dynamic Synthesis"), Hwan Ek LOW ("Integrating External Dynamics into Planning"), Joshua Zhi Ming TAN ("Realizing Meta-Planning"), Sidtharshini D/O MANUNETHI ("Cue Design for the Manipulation of Game Players"), Shasi ANAND.S ("Data Structures for Story Representation"), Ryan Weilun WEE ("Scene Patterns for Game Situations"), Zi Xu SIEW ("Player Manipulation in Gaming"), Shawna Chun Ghim TAN ("Actor Expressions"), Yingyu LIU ("A Graphical User Interface for Planning"), Gary Zisheng LIN ("Profiling a Game Player by Test Situations"), Keng Hong LER ("A Rule Engine to Drive Game Logic"), Wee Siang LEE ("Case-based Reasoning for Game Player Behavior Prediction: Feature Optimization"), Omar Naeem MALIK ("Multi-Unit Tactical Pathplanning: Optimization"), Wen Jun SEAH ("Multi-Unit Tactical Pathplanning for Games: Relaxation") 2008: National University of Singapore: Irvin Chua XIANWEI ("Formalizing Story Structure Knowledge"), Stanley Huang JUNHAO ("Formalizing Character Generation Knowledge"), Lei LIU ("A Character Behavior Interface for the Source Game Engine"), Neelesh Chandrakant JADHAV ("A Pac-Man Game Framework"), Wenhe ZHAO ("Prediction of User Behavior in Gaming"), Haiqing WANG ("Multi-Unit Strategic Pathplanning")

Research Project Grants:

"Automated Storyplanning for Games" (2008-2011; 3 years), S$ 1,053,588, funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF2007IDM-IDM002-051) "Interactive Intelligence - Pushing Entertainment to the Next Level" (2007-2009; 3 years), S$ 150,000, funded by the MOE-Academic Research Fund ARF and the NUS University Operating Budget (RG-263-001-148)

Other:

Emmy Noether Fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG) (2002-2003) Winner of the Founders Competition Multimedia 1998 of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) Enhanced Ph.D. scholarship by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (1997-2000) 1997 Best Diploma Thesis Award by the German National Research Center for Information Technology (GMD)

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)

International Game Developers Association (IGDA)

Last update:
8-Aug-2011 by Alexander Nareyek