The Team

Alex J. Champandard

Alex has worked in industry as a senior AI programmer for many years, most notably for Rockstar Games. There he worked the motion technology that powers the R.A.G.E. engine (proprietary middleware used in all Rockstar titles internally, including the animation-intensive ROCKSTAR'S TABLE TENNIS) and was initially involved developing the artificial intelligence and gameplay for MAX PAYNE 3. Alex regularly consults with leading studios in Europe, most recently on the multiplayer bots for KILLZONE 2 at Guerrilla Games.

With a strong academic background in artificial intelligence, Alex authored the book AI Game Development and often speaks about his research — in particular at the Paris Game AI Conference which he co-organizes with his wife Petra. He's Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games (TCIAIG), is a member of the Program Committee for the Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) conference, and part of the Organizing Committee of Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG) as Industry Liaison.

Petra Champandard-Pail

Petra has a background in business management, and worked as an International Area Manager for a large multi-million dollar corporation. She eventually got bored of that and joined the games industry, in particular at 10tacle (10T) Studios where she was an associate producer on a web-based game project.

She then joined Alex as the co-founder of AiGameDev.com KG. Petra is the creative force in the team, and takes care of business!

Philip Dunstan

Phil is one of our veterans, coming to us after nearly 7 years at Electronic Arts. While there, he specialized in physics simulation, core technology and console performance and worked on several of EA's biggest franchises. Among his many achievements since moving to Vienna is being able to surf then ski within a few weeks of each other, and to survive the Austrian winter.

Phil's business card lists him as Head of More Cowbell at AiGameDev.com.

Guilherme Rodrigues

Guilherme Rodrigues studied Computer Engineering at University of Coimbra and specialized on Evolutionary Computation in his master thesis. He was interested in the inner workings of computer games since he was a child and the wish to produce interesting AI-behavior led him a long way from Portugal into the AiGameDev-headquarter where he fills the role of the editor. The bitter cold in Vienna drove him into the arms of a hot-chocolate addiction and we hope he will be able to overcome it soon.

Jose Antonio Escribano Ayllon

With a personality as big as his name, Jose brings Spanish passion to his work on AI and Animation. Surprising the whole team by the fact that he made it through the (admittedly mild this year) Viennese winter, Jose has taken on the mantle of Lead Programmer to drive the team technology and infrastructure forward over the coming year.

Richard Kogelnig

Richard Kogelnig studied Computational Intelligence at the Vienna University of Technology and is the newest member of the AiGameDev.com team. In his master thesis he specialized on decomposition-based motion planning and he is fascinated by the application of advanced graph-based methods in AI.

Matthew Jack

Matthew took some time out from his regular AI consulting and development projects with game studios and serious games companies to become part of the original bootcamp team of 2011. Now that his tenure at AiGameDev.com is complete, Matthew has returned to the home country to continue doing other important, consultant type things.

Matthew spent only 6 months with us in 2011, yet his presence still lingers. Mostly electronically.