Mobo Studio Fall 2009 Team

Mobo Studio Team
Leah Gilliam • Director of Projects: Mission Lab
Leah Gilliam comes to Q2L after a rich history of teaching, developing academic programs, and designing user experiences using film, electronic media, games and interactive installation. Until she left to pursue her love of game design and the transformative power of play in 2006, Leah was an associate professor of Electronic Arts at Bard College as well as the chair of the Arts Division. A 2008 graduate of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Leah's recent projects include Lesberation, a board game of territory capture and tile placement inspired by the rebellious beginnings of the gay-rights movement; ID, a game of identity theft in which players compete to stockpile and represent complex minority identities; and Metrophile, a big game that transforms the NYC subway system into a playing field.

William Moyet • Afterschool Coordinator and Community Catalyst
William is originally from New York City and grew up on the Lower East Side. William attended Trinity College in Hartford, CT. While at Trinity, William majored in American Studies with a special concentration in race relations. William has always been active in community service. While a senior at Trinity, William served as the Assistant Chair of FACES—the largest community service organization at the college. Will has worked as a U.S. History teacher at Salisbury School in Salisbury, CT. While at Salisbury, he was very engaged in the life of the school, working as an individual and small group tutor in different subject areas. William also served as a dorm parent and sports team coach for Salisbury's wrestling, football and baseball teams. Through his work as Q2L's Afterschool Coordinator and Community Catalyst, William continues his commitment to civic and community engagement.

Pollie Barden • Mobile Fashion
Pollie is an avid gamer, who has designed big games as well as games for the mobile platform. She worked on snagu), photo scavenger hunt game that was a 2006 mtvU Digital Incubator Award winner. She co-created Big Tangrams which ran in both the 2009 Come Out and Play Festival, the Figment Festival and was featured in Conflux City. Pollie has worked with the Institute of Play on Q2L's wellness social network, Being Me. This Fall, she co-organized a Fashion Bar Camp during Fashion Week which brought together industry, indie and wearable designers for a weekend of workshops and presentations. She has a masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and was the 2008 keynote speaker on the topic of "Women in Game Design," at Bridges Summer Institute at Brooklyn College. She is also an active member of _gaia, a women’s artist collective in Jersey City, whose work has been shown in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Italy. Pollie is passionate about the intersection of fashion, technology and the mobile devices we carry. She looks forward to working with fellow fashionistas in Mobo Studio's Mobile Fashion pod.

Jennifer Boyle • Mobile Fashion
Jennifer Boyle is a teaching assistant for the Fashion Technology after school pod. She is currently enrolled in the History and Education Master's program at Columbia University, Teacher's College. Interested in the relationship between fashion and history, Jennifer has worked on the technical design team at Diane von Fursternberg and behind the scenes at British designer Alexander McQueen's New York offices. Through her experience in the fashion industry, she has become fascinated by the ways external forces influence the direction of design. Whether designers are drawing their inspiration from an artist's work or from an environmental awareness campaign, fashion is dynamic and reflects society. This interplay is Jennifer's starting point for future research.

Tiffany Burnette • Generating Buzz
Tiffany Burnette is the Principal Designer and Founder of Designhype, Inc. Her most recent product, NYC Metro Cuff, has been sold at the Museum of Modern Art store in New York City and has been published in magazines globally. Tiffany is a curriculum design consultant, trainer and teaching-artist at Sweat Equity Enterprises. She holds a Masters in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor's in Industrial Design from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Tiffany's background and passions include product, package and graphic design and teaching in these fields.

Al Doyle • Comics, Characters and Creativity
Al Doyle, a native of Brooklyn, has interests ranging from art and animation to set design, digital imaging and most recently, game design. He was the producer and lead animator for the Salvadori Foundation's Art of Construction, a web site designed to teach basic architecture and engineering to middle school students. For more than twenty years, he has taught computer graphics and multimedia at leading independent New York City K-12 schools.

Al developed a popular course for adults, Learning Photoshop Through Art, at the Guggenheim Museum. Al received a Jerome Foundation Fellowship to create a portfolio of prints at Bob Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop which is now in the Library of Congress collection. Al studied stage design at the Polakov Studio in the West Village and was resident designer at HB Studio for several years. In addition, he designed over 100 educational theater productions and over 25 professional designs for ballet, dance, drama, musical theater and opera in off-Broadway and regional theater. As Director of Internet Training at the National Teacher Training Institute for New York's Channel Thirteen / WNET, Al traveled extensively in a "train-the-trainers" model of technology integration for K-12 teachers.

Currently, in addition to his role at Quest, Al teaches for the graduate division of Touro College's Masters Degree Program in Instructional Technology.

Ameer Mourad • Super Sleuths
Ameer is originally from Long Island, NY. He completed his undergraduate education at Queens College and his graduate work at Columbia University. Ameer is naturally inquisitive, and has spent a significant amount of time doing research in a genetics lab and has also worked as a tutor, camp counselor and a lab technician. Ameer's enthusiasm for science and engineering makes him uniquely suited for his role as the mentor for Super Sleuths.

Raina Telgemeir • Comics, Characters and Creativity
Raina Telgemeier is the adaptor and illustrator of the Baby-sitters Club graphic novel series (Scholastic/Graphix), which were selected by YALSA for their Great Graphic Novels for Teens list in 2007, as well as ALA’s Top 10 Graphic Novels for Youth list. She is the co-author of the recently-released X-Men: Misfits (Del Rey Manga), which debuted at #6 on the New York Times’ Graphic Books Bestseller list. Her graphic memoir, SMILE, will be published by Scholastic/Graphix in February, 2010. Raina’s comics have been nominated for the Ignatz, Cybil, and Eisner Awards, and have appeared in publications by Random House, DC Comics, and Nickelodeon Magazine. A graduate of Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts, Raina currently resides in Astoria, NY, with her husband and fellow cartoonist, Dave Roman. Visit her online at www.goRaina.com.