Research
I investigate how interaction, game mechanics and visual metaphor can support emotional reflection, emotional literacy and the communication of mental-health experiences.
The work sits across game design, human–computer interaction and design research, and is conducted primarily through practice: artefacts, prototypes and playable systems are the instruments of enquiry as well as its outcomes. Individual projects move between mental-health literacy, emotional literacy and interactive narrative, and are framed by research through design — building in order to understand, then reporting what the making made visible.
Three lines of enquiry that cross every project
How game mechanics and interactive experiences can support emotional naming, differentiation, reflection and emotional granularity — treating play as a space for noticing feeling states, not only for expressing them.
How games communicate, represent and open conversations around emotional and mental-health experiences without necessarily functioning as clinical interventions — and what responsible representation asks of a designer.
Practice-based enquiry into how interaction, visual metaphor, animation, narrative, environment and game mechanics translate abstract emotional experiences into playable systems that can be examined and argued with.
Publications, projects, theses and recognised work — newest thinking first
FDG ’26 · Foundations of Digital Games
Presents Library of Emotions, a practice-based mobile prototype exploring how mental health literacy may be supported through emotional granularity and reflective play. Literacy is embedded in the mechanics rather than delivered as instruction, supporting early recognition and more precise emotional naming rather than treatment.
Universidad de La Sabana
A practice-based game design project asking how a 2D puzzle-platformer can communicate an experience related to social anxiety through visual metaphor, interactive narrative, world design, character design, animation and mechanics. It is not presented as a clinical intervention; it examines how design decisions translate an emotional concept into an interactive audiovisual experience.
RMIT University
An ongoing practice-based project exploring how interactive media can support emotional literacy and mental health literacy. It investigates interfaces, mechanics and narrative structures that help people recognise, name and reflect on emotional states, with emotional granularity as the central design concern. The mobile prototype was first published at FDG ’26.
Universidad de La Sabana
The Naibu thesis was awarded a Meritorious distinction, the institution’s recognition for outstanding final-year research, with a final grade of 4.8 / 5.0.
Government of Colombia · Universidad de La Sabana
Full national merit scholarship covering the entire Bachelor’s degree, awarded on academic merit. Funded the period in which the Naibu research was conducted.
RMIT University · Future Forte · Bunjil Place
Practice outputs selected for the RMIT MAGI Expo (2024), the inaugural Future Forte showcase (2025) and a month-long exhibition at Bunjil Place (2025) — the contexts in which the research artefacts met public audiences.
I welcome contact from researchers, supervisors, conference organisers and practitioners working on games, emotional literacy and mental-health representation — including collaboration, review, speaking and supervision-adjacent conversations.