• Producer: Chong  Zhang

Chong grew up in a small city on the east coast of China called Ningbo, where she spent her childhood learning traditional Chinese painting and dance. Before coming to the United States, Chong earned a Bachelor’s Degree in New Media and a Master’s Degree in Interaction Design from Zhejiang University of Technology, College of Arts. Chong first learned about the ETC when she saw Randy Pausch’s last lecture ‘Chasing Your Childhood Dreams’. During her time as an ETC student Chong has traveled across the world, studying in three ETC global campuses. She has had multiple roles ranging from texture artist, UI designer, to producer. As a producer Chong enjoys finding and solving problems, taking on responsibilities, and above all, taking care of her team. She is especially excited about the opportunities her role has given her to help the people around her succeed. She loves the excitement she feels going to work every day, and sees each new day as an opportunity for success.

 

•  Lead Programmer: Robert Duncan

As a teenager, Robert (Robby) Duncan realized that while he loved to play video games, he loved to make them even more. He has since geared all of his educational and extra-curricular endeavors toward the singular goal of professionally making video games. While working on personal game-design projects, he obtained an undergraduate degree in Informatics from the University of California, Irvine, providing him with industry-quality training in the design and development of software projects as whole. He is now using that experience to develop video games and other forms of entertainment technology, and loving every second of it.

 

 

 

• Lead Game Designer : Alex Kowalski

Alex has long aspired to be a part of the entertainment industry. His interests include animation and film, video game design, and working with new media of all sorts from website development to software applications for educational and commercial purposes. He finds the technical and artistic sides of these fields equally fascinating and can devote hours to searching for a technical solution to a problem or perfecting the smallest detail of a website or animation, becoming fully absorbed in the task. The best part is that it seems no more like work to him than getting lost in a video game. Having a job that he enjoys within an industry for which he has great respect and appreciation is his primary career goal and he sees his enrollment in the MET program as an important next step toward realizing this goal. He is excited to be a member of the ETC community, where he hopes to further develop both his technical and artistic expertise. He also expects his participation in the program to help him focus his broad interests and more fully discover his own creative voice as he searches for where he might best fit within this exciting field.

 

• Programmer: Nan Jia

After graduating with a degree in Computer Science and Technology, Nan decided to pursue a career and life that she loves, in which she may bring fun and amusement to people by using the skills that she has learned throughout her life. She is grateful and lucky to be one of the first year ETC-Portugal program students enrolled in September 2010 at Madeira ITI on the Pearl of the Atlantic – Madeira island of Portugal. In the three-month studies as well as the trips to the impressively beautiful resorts, she started to step out into location-based entertainment. Being a 3D artist, an experience designer, and an alternate programmer in Building Virtual Worlds in the spring of 2011, Nan accumulated the experience to be a tech artist and learned the skills to communicate and cooperate in a group. At the same time, Nan did an independent study on the Bridge Team of ETC – Cosmic Contacts as a programmer. With great help from the group, she designed and programmed a UI and a multi-touch game prototype for the camera- projector surface on Fifth floor in ETC building. This summer, she is doing an internship with Oceanus-ETC.

 

• Sound Designer: Sophie; Ling-Hsuan lu

From a young age, I held a deep fascination for arts of all forms, and my musical talents allowed me to shine and gain admissions to the most selective programs in Taiwan for gifted students. Along the way, I won numerous honors (e.g. Taipei City Oboe Competition, International Education Association of Japan Piano Competition, etc.) and was voted Most Talented Student at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). I performed extensively as the principal oboe for the NTNU Orchestra and was actively involved in cheerleading, theater, etc., even producing my own film. I further collaborated with students from various film departments and gained invaluable practical experiences composing music for their productions. As the musical director of a Christmas video game live concert organized by the Banqiao Municipal government, I oversaw the musical selection, purchase of copyrights, liaison with the press, coordination with bands, lighting, choreography, sound effects, etc., and personally penned three Christmas carols. I learned to manage and work well in a team, and the performance received overwhelmingly positive affirmation. After graduation, I first joined Gisi Creative Co. as a music producer and later Next Media Animation (Asia’s leading 3D animation production studio) as a Sound Designer/Music Composer. Responsible for composing the musical scores of animated news clips as well as 5-6 three-minute pieces daily for next day broadcast on the Internet, I truly matured as a professional and quickly became an integral member of the team. At the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), I have further taken myself up another level, through working on such ambitious projects as Building Virtual World and the design of games such as The Jumper, Circuit, Zombie of the East, The Exorcist, Ghostbusters, etc. On top of being solely responsible for all music scores and effects, recording and editing of dialogue, etc., I further oversaw the planning and successful launch of the games as a producer. Growing up, music perpetrated every facet of my life. I am fully aware that a career in music is a tortuous road, and after the baptism in fire that is ETC, I believe I am capable of taking on any challenge in the industry. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

 

• 3D Animator: Yun-Kyu Kim

Yun-kyu is a 3d animator and modeler. He has worked as an animator in a game company for 2 years. He is a Digital Art and Design graduate from Kyung Hee University in Korea with a passion for animation.
Yun-kyu found himself wanting to study at Carnegie Mellon. He decided to study at the ETC because he wanted to participate in everything from planning a game to designing one, which is very different from just simply working in a company. He was working as an animator but has studied directing, and he plans to continue to do so for graphic projects.

 

 

 

 

• 2D Artist: Hyemi Do

Hye mi graduated shungshin women’s university in Korea. Her major was Media information. With a belief that sensitivity infused with sense results in actually moving someone’s feelings, she studied overall web planning systematically and professionally. During her undergraduate years, she granted many opportunities to participate in diverse inter-disciplinary team projects as contents designer and 2D designer. By collaborating as a team, not only she learned how to create and maximize the synergy effect, she also understood the position of programmer and artist as contents designer and found how to create the contents with more realistic and detailed method.

After entering ETC she broaden her interest from web to location based entertainment. She found out that she wants to create experience which moving someone’s heart. In order to move people genuinely, she will always pursue new things but simultaneously put herself in a user’s shoes and take only a half step forward in order to avoid excess. In the future time, she is looking for a chance to work in the theme entertainment industry as an Experience Designer.