Dr. Melanie Stegman graduated from the University of Chicago in 1992, and received her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology in from the University of Cincinnati. She completed Postdoctoral appointments at Dartmouth Medical School (AY05) and Cornell Weill Medical College (2005 – 2008), where she designed a strategy to screen for novel chemical inhibitors of DNA repair in the Human pathogen, Tuberculosis mycobacterium.

Melanie’s career in video games began in 2008 at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC where she served as the Director of the Learning Technologies Program from 2010 – 2014.  Melanie won a competitive research grant from the NIAID/NIH to study the video game, Immune Attack and create the real time strategy game, Immune Defense. Melanie teaches fundamentals of game design and development, as well as methods for managing the process of innovative game design and development.  

Melanie is pleased to join the Game Design program to pursue groundbreaking work at the intersection of art, science and game design, while equipping our students with computational literacy and design strategy. Most recently, Melanie led teams of professors, students, and outside developers in the design and development of games, simulations and web based interactives at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. Melanie continues to serve as affiliate faculty at the Drexel University College of Medicine for the Masters in Biomedicine and Digital Media program.

Melanie is the founder and owner of Molecular Jig Games, LLC, where she creates games that take place in the molecular world. Melanie maintains the ScienceGameCenter.org and hosts events to support game developers interested in creating science games.