The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) is a department at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It is located at the Pittsburgh Technology Center. The ETC offers a two-year Masters of

Entertainment Technology Entertainment technology is the discipline of using manufactured or created components to enhance or make possible any sort of entertainment experience. Because entertainment categories are so broad, and because entertainment models the world in ...

(MET) degree, jointly conferred by Carnegie Mellon University's

College of Fine Arts The School of Fine Arts or College of Fine Arts is the official name or part of the name of several schools of fine arts, often as an academic part of a larger university. These include: The Americas North America *Alabama School of Fin ...

and School of Computer Science. Students enrolled in the ETC learn interdisciplinary skills in design, art and technology, and are prepared for environments where artists and technologists work hand-in-hand, such as theme parks, interactive museum exhibits, website design and development, and the creation of video games.

History

The ETC was co-founded by

Donald Marinelli Donald is a Scottish masculine given name. It is derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterp ...

, a Professor of Drama, and

Randy Pausch Randolph Frederick Pausch () (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American educator, a professor of computer science, human–computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pausch l ...

, a Professor of Computer Science, in 1999. The ETC has a history of having agreements with certain companies, such as

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

, and

Rockstar Games Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Foun ...

, where the companies agree to hire a set number of ETC graduates each year.

Curriculum

The ETC's curriculum is split into 4 semesters, with a required industry internship in between the second and third semesters. The first semester includes required classes, such as Building Virtual Worlds, Fundamentals of Entertainment Technology, Improvisational Acting, and a Visual Storytelling class. The next three semesters all consist of a semester-long project course, and one elective class, which can be any other class taught at

. The project course consists of 5 team-based projects, each of which is completed with a scrambled team of students, and in a two-week period.

Faculty

* Don Marinelli * Drew Davidson * Brenda Bakker Harger * Mike Christel * Ruth Comley * John Dessler *

Chris Klug Chris Klug (born November 18, 1972) is a professional alpine snowboarder. After receiving a liver transplant in 2000 to treat primary sclerosing cholangitis, he went on to compete in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, winning a bronze ...

* Jiyoung Lee * Michelle Macau * Carl Rosendahl * Shirley Saldamarco *

Jesse Schell Jesse N. Schell (born June 13, 1970) is an American video game designer and author, as well as the CEO of Schell Games, and a distinguished professor of the practice of entertainment technology at CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), a ...

* David Culyba * Scott Stevens * Jessica Trybus * Ralph Vituccio

Adjunct Faculty

* John Buchanan * Mk Haley * David Gurwin * Kerry Handron *

Jessica Hodgins Jessica K. Hodgins is an American roboticist and researcher who is a professor at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and School of Computer Science. Hodgins is currently also Research Director at the Facebook AI Research lab in Pittsburgh next ...

* Eric Paulos *

Luis von Ahn Luis von Ahn (; born 19 August 1978) is a Guatemalan-American entrepreneur and software developer. He is the founder of the company reCAPTCHA, which was sold to Google in 2009, and the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo. For these projects and othe ...

* William J (Chip) Walter * John Wesner * Josh Yelon

Staff

* Steve Audia * MaryCatherine Dieterle * Rebecca Lombardi * Bryan Maher * Cari Marty * Julie McKenzie * Vicki Poklemba * David Purta * Valerie Sofranko * Susan Timko * Jon Underwood * Caitlin Zunic

Corporate partners

* Maiy El-Wakil * Craig Lipchin * Shawn Walters

Visiting scholars

Anthony Daniels Anthony Daniels ( ; born 21 February 1946) is an English actor and mime artist, best known for playing in 11 ''Star Wars'' films. He is the only actor to have either appeared in or been involved with all theatrical films in the series, and h ...

Nick Fortugno Nick may refer to: People and fictional characters * Nick (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Désirée Nick, German actress and writer Places * Nick, Hungary, a village * Nick, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland, a v ...

Michael Keaton Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), known professionally as Michael Keaton, is an American actor. He has received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for an Aca ...

* Oscar Garcia Panella * Mickey McManus *

Katie Salen Katie Salen Tekinbaş is an American game designer, animator, and educator. She is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. Previously, she taught at DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media, Parsons The New School ...

In memoriam

* Anne Humphreys *

References

External links

* {{coord, 40.43184, -79.96192, type:edu_globe:earth_region:US-PA, display=title Educational institutions established in 1999 Schools and departments of Carnegie Mellon 1999 establishments in Pennsylvania