Courses taught:
- Introduction to Narrative Design
- Introduction to Game Studies
- Narrative Game Studio
- Game Studies I
- Games 101
Clara Fernández-Vara is a media scholar, and a game designer and writer. Her work focuses on narrative design, both as her professional practice and in her academic work, as well as videogame history. Clara’s videogame work is grounded in the humanities, informed by her background in literature, film and theatre, which she brings to digital technologies.
Before joining the NYU Game Center, Clara spent six years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a researcher and game developer. She holds a Ph.D. in Digital Media from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. Clara has presented her work at various international academic and industry conferences, such as DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association), Foundations of Digital Games, the Electronic Literature Organization Conference, Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), and East Coast Games Conference. She has worked on commercial games for Warner Bros., Die Gute Fabrik, the Spanish National Ballet, and Big Fish Games among others. Her book, Introduction to Game Analysis, is now on its third edition.