Shawn Pierre, Visiting Assistant Arts Professor
The NYU Game Center Welcomes Shawn Pierre to the faculty as a Visiting Assistant Arts Professor
We’re excited to announce that Shawn Pierre will be joining the full-time faculty of the NYU Game Center this fall as a visiting professor. Based in Philadelphia, Shawn began working with us as an adjunct faculty member during the challenging semesters of remote education in 2020, teaching courses on programming for games. His work as an independent game developer has explored numerous combinations of media, creating new forms of play through physical interaction, installations, text-messaging, voice control, and more. Shawn’s games include the game festival hit Henka Twist Caper, SMS social deduction in Urban Werewolf, the dancing animal game Show Off, the interactive Choices podcast, the mobile word game letteRing, and many more.
Alongside his exploration into combinatorial forms of play, Shawn has been a consistent and vital pillar of game-making communities at the local and national levels. For the past five years he’s been the Project Director of Philly Game Mechanics (phillygamemechanics.com), supporting game development and indie game enthusiasts in the Philadelphia area. (In case you’re wondering, Shawn will be teaching in person in New York, but continuing to operate in the Philly area as well!) Shawn has also lent his skills to support and help run events and infrastructure for Indiecade, one of our longest-running national festivals of independent games, and to teaching game development courses for students in high schools and summer programs.
The full-time faculty and staff of the NYU Game Center are thrilled that Shawn will be bringing his varied expertise, skills, and devotion to community to NYU as a visiting professor at the Game Center.