Andrey Goncharov

As an Interactive Arts student, Andrey pursued his love for game design throughout his undergrad by concentrating in interactive systems and media arts.

His deep passion for video games allows him to take pleasure in designing and programming games, creating prototypes and helping out others with their games. Andrey believes in a future where video games become a teaching and learning tool for the masses as the focus shifts from receiving entertainment to acquiring practical skills through play. Prior to receiving this award, Andrey spent one and a half years working as a Teaching Assistant for IAT312 – Introduction to Game Design and IAT410 – Advanced Game Design. He taught Unity, C#, and game design to the students attending his lab. Recently, Andrey finished a four-month co-op term working for Virtro Entertainment as a Unity developer, where he worked on virtual reality games and a VR language learning game called Argotian. His ever-growing Unity and dame development skills allow him to work on alternate applications of the game engine. For example, Andrey has worked as a Research Assistant for SIAT professor Steve DiPaola in his iVizLab, where a virtual interactive conversational avatar is being made in the Unity Game Engine as part of the lab’s research.

“I’m thankful for this meaningful award. The funding from the Cody Sawatsky Award allowed me to take some of the financial load off my semester and allowed me to free up time in preparing to seek a co-op position at an independent game studio. Games are a very deep passion of mine and I've spent a majority of my undergrad continuously learning and teaching game design to kids and peers. I plan to attend the Centre for Digital Media to pursue my Master’s in Digital Media.”