University of Toronto

Faculty Member, Faculty of Information

About

Dr. Sara M. Grimes is an Assistant Professor of Children's Literature and New Media at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, and Visiting Professor at the University of St. Michael’s College. She researches and teaches primarily in the areas of children's digital media culture(s), play studies and critical theories of technology, with a special focus on digital games. Sara's work has appeared in journals such as New Media & Society, The Information Society, The International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, and Communication, Culture & Critique. Her published work includes explorations of children's virtual worlds and online communities, examinations of online marketing targeted to children, the articulation of a critical theory of digital game play, and discussions of the legal and ethical dimensions of virtual property in online games. In addition to her own research on child-generated content in digital games, Sara is currently collaborating on a number of play-related projects. She is associate director of the Inclusive Design Institute UofT Mobile and Pervasive Computing Cluster, heading the Adaptive Gaming and Inclusive Play research area. She is co-applicant on a recently awarded Partnership Development Grant on Digital Economy Trading Zones, leading a reference project on Play. Sara is on the advisory boards of the Media Awareness Network’s Young Canadians in a Wired World Phase 3, and Atmosphere Industries' "Privacy: The Game!."

Sara's current research explores the legal and cultural implications of child-generated content within the specific context of DIY games such as LittleBigPlanet and Spore. In addition to maintaining her own research blog (Gamine Expedition), she is occasional contributor to a number of online forums, including The Escapist magazine and Shaping Youth.

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