Dr Richard Cole
Co-Director
Dr Richard Cole is Lecturer in Digital Futures at the University of Bristol. His research focuses on how videogames, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence systems allow for and pose new forms of humanistic inquiry. Previously, he held the role of Lecturer in Digital Classics and worked as a researcher on the multidisciplinary Virtual Reality Oracle project at the University of Bristol. Richard has published on the role of video games and historical fiction more broadly in shaping public perception. He co-founded the Lab with Dr Xiaochun Zhang in September 2022.
Dr Michael Samuel
Co-Director
Dr Michael Samuel is Lecturer in Digital Film and Television at the University of Bristol. His research is positioned from the intersection of film, television and games and digital technologies. He has published on television, games and digital culture. He is currently writing about slow games and the American small town, games and heritage, and investigating the capacity of games to elicit empathy for those living with postnatal depression.
Vishal Joshi
Research Associate
Vishal Joshi is a Research Assistant in the Game Lab for the final 2025 study in the Game Conscious Characters project, in partnership with Meaning Machine. With a background in Theoretical Physics, Vishal is now a 3rd year PhD student in the Interactive Artificial Intelligence Centre for Doctoral Training and affiliated with the Bristol Interaction Group. Vishal's research interests involve developing technologies to support and enhance the gameplay experience of table-top roleplaying games using agent-based methods. Along with game development and design, Vishal also has an interest in creative writing and storytelling - currently co-writing for an independent game project with friends from his undergraduate degree.
Dr Frances Pickworth
Research Assistant
Dr Frances Pickworth was the Research Assistant for the CultureQuest project. Having completed a PhD in Classics at the University of Bristol in 2025, she is now Lecturer in Digital Classics at Bristol and also Project Co-ordinator for the Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security (RISCS). Amongst other things, Frances is interested in how early Greek epic creates identity, authority, and truth, and how space works to shape plot in ancient and modern narrative. Before returning to academia, she worked across various roles in the private, public, and third sectors.
Will Price
Intern
Will Price undertook an internship at the Lab over the summer of 2025. Will is a PhD candidate in the Department of Film and Television at the University of Bristol. His doctoral research concerns the theorization of the philosophy of history present in the SoulsBorne games. His wider research interests include continental philosophy, theology, early modern and medieval history, particularly of contagion, lunacy and chivalry, as well his home turf of game studies.
Claudia Jones
Intern
Claudia Jones was the Bristol Digital Game Lab intern in 2022-23, a role she held while studying for a Master of Arts in Black Humanities. She is a former librarian from the United States of America. Her research interests include Black historical narratives in video games, Black digital bodies, and games as archives.
Lu Han
PhD Student
Lu Han is a PhD student with an interdisplinary background in computer science and media production. Lu's research explores the use of affective AI in game-based learning for ancient history education, with a focus on enhancing both cognitive and emotional involvement in gameplay through emotionally aware NPCs. Lu’s wider research interests include video games, artificial intelligence, affective computing, creative computing and interaction design. Biggest gaming achievement - I built a castle in Minecraft with body-tracking control.
Lexie Henning
PhD Student
Lexie is passionate about exploring Classical reception through the lens of contemporary storytelling in digital media, particularly non-Classical video games. Her work is centered around The Last of Us franchise while her research employs interdisciplinary methods that combine textual analysis with visual and interactive analysis to study implicit reception. She is also interested in questions of how implicit reception finds its way into game narratives via the development process and how different mediums can affect the reception of a narrative. Her biggest gaming achievement to date are her successful partnerships with professors to produce archaeogaming videos for classroom useage.
Edward Hammond
PhD Student
Edward’s research centres on how popular digital strategy games contribute to present-day receptions of ancient Carthage and Punic civilisation more widely by looking at the intersections between Carthage in historical narrative and affordances in game design. In doing so, he aims to explore the implications for modern discourses in memory politics and how these routes of inquiry chart new and innovative routes for Carthage’s place in Punic reception studies. Alongside studying toward his PhD, Edward works within the university sector as an Education and Student Experience practitioner.