Hi, I'm Kathleen Morrissey!

I am {

A researcher

// My creative and scholarly practice explores how games and interactive media can help us imagine and practice more just and caring futures. Drawing inspiration from solarpunk, I collaborate with fellow scholars and creators to create experimental and immersive experiences that consider our relationships with one another, technology, and the more-than-human world.

Consent is central to my approach to interactive experience design. I am interested in how games can create spaces where players can communicate boundaries, make meaningful choices, explore preferences, and practice forms of care and reciprocity. This interest extends from my creative work into my research on consensual play.

Check out Consensual Play, a special issue I edited for The Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds.

A game designer

//I produced and co-directed Memoirscape, an anti-escape room that debuted at FDG '24,  received a nomination at IndieCade '24, and was written about in Eurogamer.

//Currently, I am the director, lead artist, and producer of Attune for You, a subversive solarpunk video game. My development process for this game was the subject of a paper for FDG '26 and Generation Analog's "Green" conference '26. 

A writer

// have authored several book chapters across game studies and literary studies, as well as articles in HCI and related interdisciplinary fields. Beyond academic publishing, I maintain a personal blog where I explore experimental essays, creative ideas, and questions that don’t quite fit neatly into traditional academic forms.  Pixels & Paradigms!

A scholar

// I am finishing my Ph.D. studies in the Computational Media program at WPI, housed within the Interactive Media and Game Design department. I served as the graduate student representative for the Steering Committee, as well as a member of the Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Council. Check out my profile!

An artist

// I work across 2D art, shader programming, concept art, animation, game design, and interactive experiences, while also exploring code as a medium of artistic expression. My practice moves between digital and physical forms, using creative experimentation as a way to ask questions, build worlds, and imagine alternative ways of relating.